


Blowout

by ktula



Series: Tales from the Outer Rim [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (i am very serious about the dubcon), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Analingus, Ass Play, Ass-eating, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Exhibitionism, Extremely Dubious Consent, Hux is Not Nice, Leather Kink, M/M, Mild Hand Kink, Motorcycles, Multi, No Condoms, No Lube, Prescription Drug Use, Rimming, Scent Kink, Spit As Lube, Tattoos, Tumblr: kyluxhardkinks, alcohol use, body fluids, brief bleach joke (it's in very poor taste), brief necrophilia fantasy, but it exists, even more body fluids, exhibitionism but for chests, foreskin shaming, inappropriate tattooing procedures, is it from the alcohol? is it from the concussion?, it's definitely not sexual, kinkshaming, macabre reference photos, musk kink, no barriers for that either, no fucks given, non-con, non-con elements, predatory!Hux, probably a mild concussion, puking, smegma mention, so emetophobes beware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-12-31 12:04:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: “You want to do this,” she says. “He has no idea what the fuck he wants.”“Fucking great, Phasma,” Hux says. “Why do you do this to me? I’m supposed to do flash on some fucking idiot?”“Oh no,” she says. “He doesn’t want anything out of the flash binders either.”Hux scoffs. “You just want me to hold his hand through baby’s first tattoo.”“He’d probably let you,” she says. “He’d probably let you do whatever you want.”Hux looks up at her.She has the audacity to wink at him.“You’re the one that keeps telling me I can’t do what I want,” he mutters.***This piece started as a fill for this kyluxhardkinks prompt (http://kyluxhardkinks.tumblr.com/post/162259545045/hux-is-a-tattoo-artist-kylo-is-ehm-clearly):Hux is a tattoo artist, kylo is ehm... Clearly into the pain. Or the Ginger. Ren is not sure yet what makes him so hard in every session so he comes over and over and over again. He was thinking about going somewhere else just to see if he will react the same way but that felt like cheating on hux. So he goes to his place to get tattoos until they do something about it.The fill very rapidly went sideways.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT (February 21st, 2018): Hey, just an update here--I added the non-con tags and the archive warning in today, because after thinking about it, I figure it's better to over-tag than under-tag. Nothing else has changed, and I'll leave the rest of this note as it was originally. <3
> 
> \--- 
> 
> So, a note about the dubcon.
> 
> It's all dubcon. The whole thing.
> 
> There would be the same amount of sex in this piece if consent discussions were had--but there are no consent discussions. There are no discussions about any of it. There are no barriers used. There is no protection used. There is at least one person during the sex who is in an altered stage of mind, either due to endorphins or substances.
> 
> If you have specific questions, please give me a shout on tumblr (https://heyktula.tumblr.com/) and I will clarify.

Hux leaves his chair toppled over in his studio, stalks across the hall to his office. He cannot fucking _believe_  that after being _very fucking explicit_  about was and was not appropriate—

The client scrambles to pick his shirt up, and follows Hux back to his office, hovers in the door like a particularly unattractive plastic-wrapped vulture. “So I’ll book another appointment for next week?”

“Absolutely not,” Hux says flatly. His face itches.

“I’ll pay double. Your work is amazing.”

“No.” Hux only has a height advantage over this fucking prick if he keeps standing. So he keeps standing even though his office chair is _right there_  and he would really rather sit the fuck down.

“Triple.”

“No.” _Fuck_ , his face is itchy. He’s certain he looks like hell right now, but can’t bring himself to drop eye contact with this asshole client to look at himself in one of the mirrors.

“Come on,” the guy says, whining unattractively. “Hux, please, you’re the best, I just want—I need—”

Hux crosses his arms over his chest. “No,” he says, and _fuck you_ , he thinks. _Inconsiderate prick._

The guy takes two steps into Hux’s office.

Hux takes a step back and to the side. Puts his desk between himself and the client.

“I have, uh.” The guy clears his throat. Goes to touch his own arm, and then remembers that it’s covered in plastic wrap, puts his hand back down by his side. “I have a guy. Who can get you some, uh. Cocaine. If you want it.”

“I’m blacklisting you,” Hux says curtly.

The blood drains out of the other guy’s face, and Hux lets himself grin, wide and tight.

“You’re not welcome back here,” Hux adds.

“You can’t—from the whole studio? But Phasma—”

“Great idea.” Hux turns his head to the door. “Phasma!”

The click of her heels is military and precise as she comes down the hall—but there’s only four distinct steps audible before she’s darkening the door of Hux’s office, which means she was eavesdropping in the hallway. It works in Hux’s favour, because Phasma is six and a half feet of glare, and Hux can unleash her wrath on this fuckwad of a client whenever he feels like it.

And he definitely feels like it right now.

“He’s blacklisted,” Hux says, flicking his fingers toward where the client is standing—not too close to Hux, not too close to Phasma, and definitely not too close to the human skeleton that leers from its hanger in the corner of Hux’s office.

“Is he now,” Phasma says, and she grins wickedly.

The client shoots another look back at Hux, and Hux just grins and winks. Watches Phasma escort him out, her hand on his shoulder like a vice. Maybe the guy will fight it, try to pull away from her—because the last time that happened, she bodily picked the dude up and chucked him out into the street, and Hux wishes he’d caught it on his phone, because it was a thing of goddamn beauty.

(Hux would be delighted, if delight were an emotion he were capable of feeling—but since it’s not, he just feels vindicated and smug, which is basically the same thing.)

Hux counts to seven to make sure Phasma has gotten the guy out the door and then heads for the bathroom.

Usually he enjoys the sharp staccato of his shoes echoing in the hall, but all he can think about is how much his face fucking _itches_.

_Fucking asshole._

 

“He’s gone,” she says a few minutes later.

“Great.”

“He wasn’t happy.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Did you get the name of his cocaine guy?”

Hux slams his comb down on the edge of the sink, where it immediately slides into the bowl, which means he’s gonna have to throw the fucking thing out. “Phasma, for _fuck’s_  sake. I did not get the name of his cocaine guy because I was too busy blacklisting him from our fucking tattoo parlour.”

“Studio.”

“What the fuck ever.” Hux flicks the comb out of the sink into the garbage, washes his hands. “I’m having a drink,” he announces.

“Might wanna hold off on that,” Phasma says casually. She unpeels herself from the doorframe of the bathroom. “We got a walk-in.”

“Sounds like not my problem, seeing as I finished my shift—” He glances at his watch. “—twenty minutes ago. I’ll do you a favour—you evicted my last client for me, I won’t charge you overtime for the extra twenty minutes.”

“Course you won’t,” she says. “You still owe me time from last week—and anyway, you don’t want me to tell this guy to leave.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Take a look,” Phasma says, and the corner of her mouth twitches.

“If it’s that twink from the Rim …”

“It’s not,” she says, and she’s definitely smiling now. “But I’ve got an appointment starting in a few minutes, and—”

“I’m busy.”

She raises her eyebrow.

“I have ….”

“It’s Thursday.”

“…”

“You want to do this,” she says. “He has no idea what the fuck he wants.”

“Fucking great, Phasma,” Hux says. “Why do you do this to me? I’m supposed to do flash on some fucking idiot?”

“Oh no,” she says. “He doesn’t want anything out of the flash binders either.”

Hux scoffs. “You just want me to hold his hand through baby’s first tattoo.”

“He’d probably let you,” she says. “He’d probably let you do whatever you want.”

Hux looks up at her.

She has the audacity to wink at him.

“You’re the one that keeps telling me I can’t do what I want,” he mutters.

Waits.

“Armitage,” Phasma says. “I haven’t got all day. Shit or get off the pot.”

“Fine,” Hux snaps. “I’ll do it.”

“Oh,” Phasma says as he turns. “Uh …” She gestures to her own temple.

Hux looks in the mirror. “Mother _fucker_.”

 

His hair is damp, and he’s sure that it’s not styled correctly, but he follows Phasma to the lobby anyway to see what the fuck she thinks he would be even _remotely_  interested in. “Are you sure—”

The question dies on his lips.

The guy sitting in the lobby is fucking massive. Broad across the shoulders, made even broader by his motorcycle jacket. He’s hunched over in one of the chairs, legs spread, elbows on his knees while he fidgets with a set of cracked sunglasses.

And bloody hell, those hands. Nice and big, with long thick fingers and neat clean nails.

Hux swallows. His mouth is suddenly dry.

“This is Hux,” Phasma says perfunctorily, with that hint of snark that means she’s right—and she knows she’s right. “He’ll look after you.”

“Armitage,” Hux says smoothly, pushing away his prior irritation. His shoes click on the polished floor as he crosses the lobby, extends his hand out.

The client jolts up awkwardly, chair screeching on the floor. Wipes his hand on his jeans before extending it towards Hux. Hux closes the distance between them, shakes the client’s hand.

The guy’s hand is bigger than Hux thought, and easily eclipses Hux’s own. The resulting handshake is gentle, even though Hux can feel the guy’s strength in it, can feel that he could easily crush Hux, shattering his metacarpals with nothing more a strong, sudden squeeze. The client looks down initially, like he’s used to looking down at everything, and then adjusts his gaze upward to look Hux in the eyes.

“Kylo Ren,” he says, and his voice is oddly quiet for the size of him. Oddly quiet, deeper than Hux had expected, and just as warm as the slightly wet brown eyes meeting Hux’s own—

“Come back this way,” Hux says crisply. “Phasma mentioned this is your first tattoo?”

“Uh. Second.”

“And you had a look at the flash binders up front?”

“Yeah, uh—no.”

Hux leads Kylo back to his office, gestures for Kylo to sit down in one of the chairs across from his desk. There is something warm and predatory curling in Hux’s guts in anticipation of what’s to come.

Kylo looks at the sketches hung on the negatoscope behind Hux’s desk. His eyes widen, and then he looks at the ground for a moment before looking back up at the sketches.

Hux doesn’t need to glance back to know what he’s got up there right now—it’s reference material for his own chestpiece. Full colour reference photos of flowers, cadaver hearts, maggots, and carrion beetles stuck into the frame, and Hux’s sketches laid out over full-colour printouts of his chest in the center.

It looks intimidating.

It’s meant to.

(All the boring stuff is on Hux’s desk. He keeps the good shit on the back wall, displayed directly behind him. As long as he’s got his desk chair perfectly centered, there’s a photo of a partially dissected heart behind him and to the left, and a photo of a horde of maggots behind him and to the right. It’s important that people know what the fuck Hux is about as an artist. It’s important that they’re scared.)

Hux sits down in his leather chair, nudges his bottom drawer shut with his foot before deliberately placing both hands on his desk. “So what _do_  you want, Kylo?”

Kylo twitches again, looks away before he looks at Hux. His eyes meet Hux’s for just a moment before they slide off to a point over Hux’s shoulder. “Something—something original,” Kylo mumbles. “Geometric.”

So basically Phasma’s wheelhouse. _Great._

Hux should be mature about this, reference Kylo back to her—but fuck that. She’s the one who wanted him to take Kylo on, he’s not gonna turn around and hand him back over to her. Hux has been putting Phasma’s art on her body for years, he’s at least as good at it as she is.

Kylo is his.

Kylo’s big soft eyes are still fixated on the sketches behind Hux.

“Like what you see?” Hux asks. _I could show you the real thing_ , he thinks, and his fingers twitch as he imagines unbuttoning his shirt, stripping it off so that Kylo can look at his chest.

Kylo looks away.

Silence.

Hux sighs. “Your tattoo. Where is it going?”

Kylo reaches up to his neck, and Hux thinks for a moment it’s just nerves—but then Kylo sweeps his hair off to the side, shrugs his motorcycle jacket off his shoulders. Twists in his seat, exposing the back of his neck to Hux, and gesturing vaguely.

Hux can just barely see a flash of faded colour, so he stands up, comes around the desk. Bends a little closer, adjusts his glasses even though he doesn’t need to, because they’re always perfectly in place.

There’s a tattoo already there, on the nape of his neck. It’s an odd tattoo, faded almost beyond recognition. Clouds and the faint blue of a mid-morning sky, and something stylized in it that looks almost like footprints. The entire thing is about the size of Hux’s closed fist.

He swears he can see Kylo’s pulse pounding in his neck.

“In conjunction with—”

“Fuck no,” Kylo says, unevenly and possibly a bit louder than he intended—because his voice drops to almost a whisper for the next sentence. “Cover it up.”

“I can do that,” Hux says, walking back around to his desk. “So today, we’ll discuss generally what you want, and then I’ll sketch something up and—”

“That?” Kylo asks, pointing at one of the sketches that Hux had done earlier in the day.

Hux looks where Kylo is pointing. It’s one of the sketches he’d been working on earlier as a potential rebrand for the shop—a hexagon with a stylized sun shape in the middle, rendered in black and white.

“It’s a logo,” Hux says curtly.

“’s fine,” Kylo says. “Just, uh, do. Do that.”

Hux lifts his eyebrows briefly, leans back in his chair to give Kylo space to bolt, because that’s definitely what’s happening next—

Kylo stays where he is.

“Okay,” Hux says finally. He opens the top drawer of his desk, pulls out a consent form. “Fill this out.”

There’s a brief moment where Hux considers making an effort to redraw the design, to clean it up, to make it look as though he’s doing something—but the design is perfect, and he doesn’t need to do a goddamn thing except swap it over to transfer paper, and that doesn’t take any time at all, so instead he just—watches.

Kylo’s pen scratches far louder than is actually necessary for filling out something as simple as a consent form, and when he finally puts the pen down and backs away from the paper, Hux can tell even by looking at it upside down that Kylo’s writing is a goddamn travesty, and Hux will be lucky if he can decipher a single thing on the form.

Whatever. That can be Phasma’s problem. Maybe once she makes him partner, he’ll care about shit like this. But right now, his name sure as fuck isn’t on the insurance or the title for the shop, so it doesn’t fucking matter.

Hux stands up. “I’m just going to get this ready to go for you here. My studio is across the hall—the half-open door with my name on it. I’ll meet you there.”

He waits for Kylo to go across the hall before he lets himself exhale, and then he breathes in deeply. He’d suspected it, hadn’t been sure till now—but Kylo smells fucking good, like warm leather and sweat, an aura that only lingers in Hux’s office for a moment before fading away completely.

Hux lets his fingers come up to his collar while he’s waiting for the scanner to do its thing, undoes the top button of his shirt and tilts his head back and forth. He looks at himself in the full-length mirror. It’s a much better look with the top button undone, but it improves more when Hux undoes the second and third buttons as well. With the top buttons undone, the brilliant white clematis at the hollow of his neck is visible, framed by the black shirt. Hux smiles tightly at himself, picks the transfer paper up off the printer, and leaves his office.

 

Across the hall, Kylo has balked at the entrance to Hux’s workroom. He’s breathing a little heavier than he was in Hux’s office, standing outside in the hall looking in without even the tip of his boot over the threshold.

Hux grimaces at Kylo’s shoulders before wiping the expression off his face. Puts a bit of pressure on the small of Kylo’s back with his hand as he breezes past Kylo into the studio. “I don’t have all day.”

Kylo hesitates.

“Is it more medical than you were expecting?”

Kylo nods.

“Well, it’s necessary,” Hux says. “It’s sterile.”

“Sterile,” Kylo repeats.

Hux gestures to the chair sitting in the middle of the room. “Have a seat.” He waits until Kylo has lowered himself completely and settled in before he clarifies. “No, the other way. Straddle.” Suppresses the grin that he feels creeping onto his face when Kylo is flustered—a big man like that, flustered and awkward, standing up and sitting down again like he doesn’t know how his own legs work, how much space they take up.

Hux made him that way.

He waits until Kylo is sitting down, leaning his forehead against the headrest. There’s not enough room on the armrests for his big arms, and the way Kylo shifts around awkwardly trying to find a comfortable position is glorious. As though there’s going to be a comfortable position in that chair for someone his size—that chair isn’t even comfortable for Hux, and he’s about half the width of this guy.

(Even Hux himself gets tattooed in Phasma’s room—her chair is one that’s traditionally meant for tattoos, and it’s bigger and more comfortable than the repurposed bondage chair that Hux uses.)

“Move your hair out of the way,” Hux says, and—

—and Kylo is complying before Hux has even finished his sentence.

There are goosebumps on the back of Hux’s neck.

“Motorcycle jacket off,” Hux says, and he takes pride in how steady his voice is. He’s already mentally evaluating what he’s likely to get when Kylo takes off his shirt—a t-shirt, if Hux is lucky, but it’s just as likely to be an ugly shapeless sweater, or something dirty and stained, and that’ll kill it right there, that’ll kill the warmth coiling in Hux’s gut and—

—it’s a fucking black tank-top, cut low in the front and stretched across Kylo’s broad chest for all it’s worth. It’s so worn that Kylo’s skin is visible through it in places, and that should bother Hux because it’s an indication that Kylo doesn’t take care of himself, doesn’t take care of his things, doesn’t take care of his physical appearance and that’s usually _such_  a turnoff, but—

—but his fucking _arms_  are all muscle, his biceps so massive that Hux doesn’t think he could even get his hands wrapped around them.

_If_  he wanted to touch Kylo with his hands.

Which he doesn’t.

 

Hux snaps the gloves dramatically as he puts them on, grins when Kylo’s shoulder twitches. “I’m just going to touch your neck,” he says smoothly. “See how your skin feels.” He’s banking on Kylo’s inexperience, banking on Kylo not knowing that this doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with anything, banking on Kylo not moving a muscle as Hux presses into his neck with gloved fingers, traces the edge of Kylo’s existing tattoo.

He holds the trimmed transfer paper for the new tattoo up against the old one just in case Kylo happens to look back to see what the fuck Hux is doing. Checks to make sure everything’s the right size, that the old will be completely covered by the new—which it will be, because this is Hux’s fucking job, and he knows what he’s doing.

Kylo doesn’t look back.

Kylo doesn’t move, except to shift on the chair a little—but he doesn’t pull away from Hux’s gloved fingers. If anything, he presses back against Hux, just slightly.

Hux pulls his hand away.

“It’s alright?” Kylo asks.

Hux waits.

“My skin, I mean.”

Hux grins, forces it off his face. Affects boredom when he speaks. “It’s alright.” He taps his fingers against Kylo’s neck. “We’ll have to modify the colours, though.”

“O-oh?”

This is too fucking easy. Kylo is so fucking easy that it actually dampens Hux’s desire a bit, just a bit. Taints the taste of anticipation in his mouth. It’s no fun if the client is a fucking slut. Takes all the challenge out of it.

“The original design was in black and white,” Hux lectures, walking away from Kylo and snapping the gloves off, tossing them into the trash. “If I do this in black and white, you’ll be able to see the original tattoo through it.”

“Fuck no,” Kylo says.

“I was thinking about red.”

“Yes,” comes the immediate response.

Hux waits.

“...please. T-that … yeah, Ar—Hux.”

“Oh, Armitage is fine,” Hux says. His shoes click on the floor as he moves back to the cupboards, starts to get everything ready. His phone buzzes quietly against the counter.

 

_phasma: and?_

_armitage: you were right_

_phasma: i know_

_armitage: the size of his fucking HANDS_

_phasma: …_

_phasma: do not continue to text_

_phasma: put your phone down_

_phasma: don’t think i’m paying you OT for whatever shit you pull in there_

_phasma: and for fuck’s sake_

_phasma: DO_

_phasma: NOT_

 

Hux sets his phone to silent, puts it down before Phasma can finish texting.

Turns back to the man held captive in his chair. “How’s your pain tolerance?”

“Fine,” Kylo mumbles. “It’s—it’s fine.”

“Did it hurt the last time you got it tattooed?”

“No. Was, uh.” Kylo takes a deep breath, exhales. “Stoned.”

“Ah,” Hux says. Counts to twenty while he checks his workbench, does a mental inventory to make sure he has everything you need. “And are you stoned now?”

“Jesus, no,” Kylo says.

Silence.

“Website said not to,” Kylo mumbles.

“Good,” Hux says. “I’m glad you referenced the website.” Hux hasn’t looked at the fucking thing since Phasma informed him it was set up, and told him to make a blog post every once in a while. He usually just emails those direct to her, because why the fuck would he need to learn how to blog. It’s passé anyways.

Hux counts his breaths, rattles things around in cupboards a little more than what he needs to. “So what is this?” he asks, staring at himself in the mirror. He adjusts his collar a bit more, undoes one more button. Just for ease of movement. “Why get your old one covered?”

“… new start.”

Hux catches his own reflection again as he turns back to Kylo, forces himself to stop smiling. When he smiles too widely, when he smiles like he’s smiling now—it looks ghoulish. Scares off customers. He needs to keep his face steady. Neutral. Even though he’s disappointed that Kylo is so close to just bending in half and giving Hux everything when Hux hasn’t even done anything to him yet.

It’s going to be a disappointing session. That’s all. It doesn’t mean there won’t be benefits for Hux, but it’s not going to be the chase he’d anticipated.

“I’m just going to clean and shave your neck. Put your chin to your chest.” Hux keeps his left hand on Kylo’s shoulder as he cleans his neck with his right, waiting to see if there’s any hesitation or reaction from Kylo.

There isn’t.

He can see Kylo’s pulse jumping in his neck. Can feel every time Kylo shifts in the chair.

Hux licks his lips, launches into his spiel about the tattoo procedure. He’s been doing this for years, all the technical language that Phasma made him memorize even though he’s never given a fuck about it, just wants to draw on people’s skin so that his work and his name live in their flesh forever.

_The pain may intensify over the course of the session_  and his gloved fingers are on Kylo’s neck _you can stop the session any time you need to_  and he’s dragging a razor over Kylo’s skin _we’ll go over aftercare again at the end of the session_  and he’s cleaning Kylo’s neck again _let me know if you have any questions_  and snapping his gloves off, tossing them in the trash _time to get started_.

He puts on a separate set of gloves to apply the transfer to Kylo’s neck. Touches Kylo perhaps more than he needs to, but he does have nice skin. Hux might as well get whatever enjoyment he can out of it—Kylo doesn’t look likely to tip.

The stencil goes exactly where it needs to go, and the new design will completely obliterate the old—whatever the fuck it is that Kylo has on his neck.

Hux’s wheeled stool is still lying sideways on the floor. He braces one foot against the wheels, and then uses the other to tip it back upright again, nudge it into position. Hux sits down, flicks the tattoo gun on, and puts his left hand on Kylo’s shoulder and neck to hold him still. “Tell me about your new start, Kylo.”

Kylo doesn’t say a fucking word.

Hux puts the gun to Kylo’s neck.

 

“You shut your phone off while I was still texting you.”

“You don’t know that,” Hux says. He’s standing in the back of the lobby, watching through the front window as Kylo puts his motorcycle helmet on, cautious of the plastic wrap covering his new tattoo.

There’s a pause. Hux knows if he turns, she’ll have one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows arched. So he doesn’t turn.

“I see my sink is still clean.”

“It’s fucking pristine, Phasma.”

There’s another silence.

“Didn’t go how you expected, did it.”

“You should be happy,” Hux snaps, gesturing with his hand. “You’re always …”

Outside, on the street, Kylo adjusts himself, and revs up his bike.

Hux’s throat dries up and his tongue stills.

She chuckles.

“Get fucked, Phasma.” Hux keeps staring out the window. Watches Kylo adjust the buckle on his helmet, and head out in a cloud of black smoke.

“Can you even get it up for something that takes less than two hours?”

“I can get it up just fine,” he says. Even though it’s irrelevant. Even though she, of all people, should know that it’s not about him getting it up, it’s about him getting his mouth on people, it’s about power and—

She reaches over and _pats his cheek_. His eye twitches.

“Don’t care,” she says, clicking her way back to her own office. “The pouting is a good look on you, though.”

“Sod off,” he mutters, but not until she’s far enough away that she can’t hear him.

He’s still watching the place where Kylo’s bike was.

The back of his throat tastes like missed opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux spends a lot of time at the Rim over the next two weeks. He doesn’t really notice the aftereffects, though, until he gets out of the shower Monday morning and happens to catch a glance at himself in the mirror.
> 
> He squints. The lights in his bathroom are dull, and his hangover is fucking pounding, but in the dim light he can see that his knees are fucking wrecked, all livid purple-blue bruises. Which explains why it hurts to—well, everything. It hurts to everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that tags have been updated!

Hux spends a lot of time at the Rim over the next two weeks. He doesn’t really notice the aftereffects, though, until he gets out of the shower Monday morning and happens to catch a glance at himself in the mirror.

He squints. The lights in his bathroom are dull, and his hangover is fucking pounding, but in the dim light he can see that his knees are fucking wrecked, all livid purple-blue bruises. Which explains why it hurts to—well, everything. It hurts to everything.

He shuts his eyes while he does his hair, tries to think back. Over two weeks …. around eleven boys, five girls, eight people who didn’t say one way or the other. Pretty good numbers, to be honest.

Armitage opens his eyes, looks in the mirror.

Fuck, does he ever look like hell. Face sallow and drawn, eyes bloodshot. He runs his tongue over his teeth. His mouth tastes fucking terrible. Even though there’s no goddamn way there should be anything organic left in there, he still feels like he can taste body fluids.

_Why do bodies have so much fucking liquid in them?_

He forces himself to pound back two cups of coffee before he leaves his apartment, but it doesn’t much help.

He still feels like fucking shite.

Coffee can’t fix that.

 

The week goes poorly. He’s short with Phasma, he’s short with his clients. His head pounds every damn day and most of the nights.

The thing is, he should have fucking had Kylo. There was no goddamn reason for him not to have had Kylo because Kylo was so fucking easy, falling apart under Hux’s hands, all stammers and awkwardness and that fucking shifting in his seat like he couldn’t get comfortable, like his pants were too tight, like—

—the thing is, Hux should have fucking had him, and he has no fucking idea what had gone wrong and—

“You’re muttering again,” Phasma says sharply. “I can hear you from my office.”

“Close your damn door,” Hux bites back.

“There’s no point,” she says, and she comes into his office, leans on his doorframe like she belongs there. “I’ve got nothing to do, because I keep Friday evenings open for you, and—” She gestures at the negatoscope behind Hux’s desk, which he is resolutely not working at. “You’re behind schedule.”

Hux sighs, leans his chair back on two legs, hooking his shoes on the bar under his desk to keep himself steady. “I know,” he says.

“Also, isn’t it a bit early for bourbon?” she asks pointedly.

Hux looks at the nearly empty glass at his right hand, looks at the clock. “We’re closed in literally—”

The bell in the front lobby rings.

Phasma rolls her eyes, heads out to the front.

Hux tosses the remainder of the bourbon back, lets the legs of his chair thunk back onto the floor, and then heads out of his office to go put his glass in the dishwasher.

Right outside his door, he runs into a mass of leather so solid he actually bounces off, has to take a couple quick steps not to completely fall on his ass. He ends up catching himself on the wall behind him, but it’s a close call.

“Holy fuck, s’rry,” the mountain mumbles.

Hux blinks.

It’s Kylo, that fuckhead. He’s got a folder in one hand with photographs and magazine clippings spilling out of it, and when Hux looks down at his feet, there are more photos on the floor, and a couple of magazine clippings crumpled under Hux’s shoes.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Hux snaps.

Kylo pulls back. “… a-another tattoo?”

“Another tattoo,” Hux repeats flatly. He looks in his glass again, as though it’ll somehow be full of bourbon again, but the fucking thing is still empty. “Well, book in with Phasma.”

Kylo hesitates. “No,” he says, his voice unsteady, but gaining in strength, hinting at an as-of-yet unseen aggression that makes the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck stand up. “I want y—I want to book with you, Hux.”

Hux scowls at him.

“Armitage. Please.”

And it’s the  _please_  that fucking gets him. The _please_ , and the part where Kylo takes off his sunglasses and his eyes are just—liquid and warm, and Hux gets that twist in his guts where he desperately wants to see Kylo’s eyes roll back in his head as Hux drags his hands down Kylo’s chest and undoes his pants, and god fucking _damn_  but Hux still wants to get his mouth on Kylo even though it had gone completely tits up the first time.

Even though Hux doesn’t give second chances.

Even though Hux can get his mouth on whoever he wants, whenever he wants.

Even though Hux doesn’t need any of Kylo’s ambivalent fucking bullshit.

“Fine,” Hux says reluctantly. He gestures down to the floor. “Clean this fucking shit up, and meet me back in my office.”

He doesn’t bother putting his glass in the dishwasher, just turns around and heads right back into his office.

Pours himself more bourbon.

Sits down at his desk and waits.

 

“I’m heading home,” Phasma calls out twenty minutes later. “Lock up when you leave.”

Hux waves his hand dismissively, keeps his eyes locked on the images Kylo’s brought in. The thing is—it’s a good idea, conceptually. Kylo’s a fucking idiot, obviously, and has no knowledge of human anatomy, or the principles of design, or even a basic smattering of colour theory, but Hux can see through all that shit, see into the thing that Kylo actually wants, and it’ll be fucking good. Amazing, even.

Especially with Hux to pull it together for him, because god knows Kylo’s too stupid to figure it out himself. Under some other tattoo artist, some idiot like Mitaka that’s just going to do exactly what Kylo says, Kylo would end up with some monstrosity of random motorcycle parts, aligned poorly on his body. Some mish-mash of random shit instead of the coherent piece Kylo deserves, something that’s going to bring to mind whatever the fuck it is Kylo loves about this bike while also accentuating all the strengths of the guy’s body, his wide shoulders and his sculpted chest, the way his skin feels under Hux’s gloves, the way Kylo fucking _smells_ , like leather and sin and—

—Hux knows how to make it right. Hux knows how to make it good for Kylo.

Hux knows exactly what Kylo wants, even though Kylo doesn’ t know it yet.

Hux shuffles the order of some of the photos around. “Okay, so, I understand what you’re aiming for here, but—”

Kylo’s chair screeches as he pushes it back from the table, mumbles something.

Hux looks up at him.

Kylo clears his throat. “I, uh, I should head out.”

Hux doesn’t bother to hide his scowl.

“I s-should head out,” Kylo repeats. “Too. Since she’s—yeah. I have—and—tomorrow?”

Hux should tell him no.

Scratch that.

Hux should tell him to fuck right off, put all Kylo’s fucking reference art into the shredder as Kylo watches. See if Hux can make him cry that way, or if he would literally need to spit on the pictures of Kylo’s beloved bike and then shred them in order to get tears out of those disgustingly soft eyes.

“Tomorrow doesn’t work for me,” Hux says instead, even though he’s being fucking petty, because the shop is open all day Saturday, and Hux is working by himself and has shit-all scheduled, doesn’t expect any walk-ins since it’ll probably be pissing rain and he’ll just be trapped in his office with nothing to do but work on his own art, and fantasize about shoving someone’s dick in his mouth. “It’ll have to be … the end of the month. The thirty-first,” he says, arbitrarily picking a day that’s far enough in the future that if Kylo is really gung-ho about getting this fucking tattoo, he’ll just get another artist to do it. Hux should recommend him to another artist anyway. He doesn’t need any of this fucking—

“Yeah, s-sure. I’ll come by after—yeah. In the afternoon.”

Hux nods. Doesn’t say anything, just starts to gather up the reference photos, and stops with his fingers on one, a close-up of pipes that coil around like intestines, shiny and polished and chrome—

When he looks up again, Kylo is gone.

_Fuckhead_.

 

Hux resolves that he’s not going to look at the reference photos that Kylo had brought in. For all he knows, Kylo isn’t going to be back now that he’s been put off—and god knows, Hux needs to put in some time on his own fucking tattoo. There’s an expo coming up, and Phasma’s going to be pissed if Hux doesn’t have something to show for it. He’s been steadily tattooing the sides of her skull on the weekends, but making literally no progress on the design for his own chestpiece.

The intention was for it to be finished by the expo, the poison flowers and organic decay hanging from rotted bones tattooed over his own ribs, and trailing down onto his stomach, with a blackened, hollow heart as the centerpoint of the piece. He’s got most of that sketched out—but not all of it, not yet.

The tattoo in its current form just barely extends onto his pecs, and the reference photos he’s got pinned up are just that—references. They’re not incorporated into the design yet, he hasn’t figured out how to marry all the existing elements he already has on his arms with the stuff that he’s still adding in. He’s got carrion beetles to research, and he still needs more reference photos for rotted bone, which are fucking hard to find considering that bone doesn’t decay all that particularly well.

But Kylo’s photos.

They’re fucking good reference photos, and Armitage starts spending his weekday nights at the Rim sketching out a small backpiece for Kylo instead of working on his own stuff. He’s been provided with enough reference photos, both clips from magazines and actual photos that someone—Kylo, possibly, since the scrawl on the back of the photos might be interpreted as _KR_ , though they look much better than Hux would have expected of him—that he doesn’t need to do any additional research other than referencing the human skeleton that hangs in the corner of his office.

(He does the research anyway, though, because he doesn’t trust that Kylo has captured all the appropriate pieces, documented everything that Hux can work into the tattoo in order to make it as visually stunning as it needs to be on a body like Kylo’s.)

Referencing the human skeleton isn’t unusual, though, even though Hux knows the damn thing inside out and backwards. Hux doesn’t do a damn thing without referencing that skeleton, particularly when doing work like this—work that specifically uses imagery as metaphor for bone structure. And that’s more or less what Kylo’s tattoo is morphing into—a backpiece that uses motorcycle parts in place of bone, one that will extend to cradle the logo that Hux just put on him, and then flare out across his shoulders like wings. It’s going to be better if he can curl the piece forward onto Kylo’s collarbones, but for all he knows—and with the way Kylo had been shifting in the chair during the first coverup—Kylo won’t have the pain tolerance or the money to actually get through a tattoo that large.

It’s too bad, though.

It would be spectacular.

 

Even though he fully expects Kylo not to show, Hux prepares for the appointment on the thirty-first. Stacks the images for Kylo’s tattoo in the correct order, centers them on his desk. Arranges the reference images around them, making certain that they’re aligned properly, exactly angled to make an aesthetically pleasing display—towards Hux, that is. From where Kylo will be sitting, the display will be upside down.

After Kylo’s images are sorted, Hux makes a point of re-arranging his own references on the negatoscope behind his desk, and once he’s gotten everything rearranged, he feels inspired enough to start working on the fucking thing. He’s just finishing up the outline of the anatomically correct heart that will be tattooed directly over his own, shirt unbuttoned so that he can reference his own chest in the mirror rather than working exclusively off the skeleton or his own reference photos—when he hears something at the door.

He doesn’t turn around.

“So, it took you being salty about not getting any to get you to work on that piece, huh?”

“I could have had plenty last night,” Hux says. He sketches in the curled leaves of an aconitum flower, nestles them next to the left collarbone to balance out the carrion beetles on the other side. “Don’t be a bitch, Phas. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Well, you let me know when you’re ready with your masterpiece. I’ll make time in my schedule to tell you it’s shite whenever you like.”

“Appreciated,” Hux says flatly. He lifts the gardening magazine he’s holding in his other hand up to his mouth, uses his tongue to flip the pages. He still hasn’t turned around. “Are you here to tell me that he’s wussed out?”

“I’m right here,” Kylo says, voice deep and oddly uneven in a way that goes straight into Hux’s bones and sits there, an odd cadence to the words that Hux had completely forgotten about, and fucking Phasma had just—

Hux sticks his pencil behind his ear, adjusts his glasses, turns around.

“So,” he says. “You showed.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Phasma says cheerfully.

Kylo’s voice falters. “I-I made an appointment.”

“That doesn’t stop people from cancelling,” Hux says, setting the magazine down on his desk. “Obviously, I don’t appreciate it when that happens.” Beat. “You’re ten minutes late.”

A hint of a scowl. “Traffic,” Kylo mumbles.

“What was that?” Hux asks. “I couldn’t hear you.”

Fuck, Kylo looks good when he flinches.

Hux rebuttons his shirt at about half the speed that he usually does, can see over his glasses that Kylo is looking down at the corner of Hux’s desk.

Trust Kylo to be too fucking dumb to know how peripheral vision works. Hux knows Kylo is watching him.

“So I sketched up some options for your piece,” Hux says.

Kylo clears his throat, finally looks to the sketches that Hux has laid out on his desk. It takes him a moment, but his hands still where they’d been touching Hux’s desk, and he inhales sharply. “Is this—is this … for me?”

Hux waits a moment before saying blithely, “Oh, that’s just something I’d expanded your piece out to. You were talking about getting something smaller done, and this is your first—”

“Third,” Kylo interrupts.

Hux arches an eyebrow at him, waits it out.

After a moment, Kylo’s shoulders curl inward, and he ducks his head.

“Sit down,” Hux says magnanimously. “Like I was saying, this is a possibility for expanding the piece outwards, for someone who wanted a larger tattoo. Since you’re not one of those people …” Hux flips through the sketches, letting Kylo see each one for a few seconds before flipping to the next one. Here’s the one where the piece extends all the way down Kylo’s back and around his hips, here’s the one where the piece wraps around his neck and fades up into his skull, here’s the one where the piece goes over his shoulders and down his arms.

Hux stops flipping when he gets to the bottom of the set of sketches, pushes the piece over to Kylo. It’s a small backpiece, mechanical clamps that embrace the geometric logo Hux had done for him originally, and then more mechanical bits mimicking the guts of Kylo’s bike extending across his shoulders. It’s an easy-enough piece to expand, like all of Hux’s work—it’s better for Hux financially and otherwise if he can keep the same clients coming back. If he likes them.

“That’s … that’s fucking great, Armitage.” Kylo’s voice is so soft it’s almost inaudible.

“Yes,” Hux says. Waits a moment, and watches Kylo’s hands. Imagines Kylo sitting on them while Hux blows him, imagines Kylo biting his lip so he doesn’t make any noise.

Imagines Phasma in the room next to them, unable to hear anything as Hux sucks Kylo back into his mouth, curls his tongue around Kylo’s genitals. In his fantasies, all he can ever taste is skin, there’s no fluids to wreck anything.

(It’s always so much better in his fantasies than it ever is in reality.)

“So you approve the design?” Hux prompts after a moment.

Kylo continues to not say anything, stares at the piece of paper like a particularly dull form of livestock.

“Kylo,” Hux says sharply.

“Uh, yeah,” Kylo says. “Please.”

“Thank you,” Hux says, and he stands up.

Kylo stands up too, somewhat clumsily. His chair screeches on the floor, and the sound is like nails on a fucking chalkboard.

“You know the drill,” Hux says impatiently. “Get next door, sit down, I’ll be there shortly.”

 

_phasma: you just went right back in there, huh?_

_phasma: a second chance from armitage hux_

_phasma: never thought i’d see the day_

_phasma: i’m curious tho_

_armitage: fuck off_

_phasma: he’s a shy boy_

_armitage: fuck off, phas_

_phasma: it’s just that i’m not certain_

 

Hux shuts his screen off before any more of Phasma’s text messages come in, shoves his phone into his back pocket. Takes the transfer paper off his printer, and heads across to his workroom.

Kylo’s settled in this time, at least. Sitting in the chair the exact same way he’d sat last time, completely stock-still except for his hands fidgeting with his sunglasses. Something about the way he’s moving the sunglasses through his fingers is mesmerizing, and Hux watches him for a moment without saying anything.

Kylo is wearing another one of those fucking black tanktops, threadbare and stretched to within an inch of its life.

“Shirt off,” Hux says curtly.

“Shit,” Kylo says softly, holds the leg of his sunglasses in his teeth as he reaches back, grabs his tanktop in both hands, and pulls it over his head. “Sorry,” he says, voice muffled by his shirt.

“Fuck,” Hux says under his breath. Kylo is fucking ripped, his entire back well-defined muscle. Hux immediately regrets not asking him to stand up, face Hux while taking off his shirt.

_How the_  fuck  _is he so well-defined?_

It’s fine.

There will be time at the end of the appointment for Hux to start the process, get Kylo warmed up so that later—later, he can get his mouth on Kylo.

Fucking bitch better put out this time, that’s all Hux has to say about it.

 

Kylo does not put out.

He pulls the same fucking bullshit this session he pulled last session—lasts about thirty minutes without moving, and then starts shifting in his chair every time Hux lifts the tattoo gun, to the point where Hux is lifting the gun for longer and longer just to give Kylo a chance to get settled so Hux doesn’t fuck up the tattoo.

Hux is going to tell him off.

He’s planning the speech in his head as he works on the outline of the piece, planning exactly what he’s going to say to Kylo—except that every time Kylo moves, all the muscles in his back ripple, and Hux holds off on saying anything because he’s appreciating the aesthetic of the man, and then by the time Kylo settles again, Hux has forgotten his fucking diatribe and has to start planning it again from the beginning.

Right at the end of the session, Kylo’s hand actually goes into his pocket like he’s touching himself, and Hux hesitates with the tattoo gun just a second too long—long enough that Kylo puts his hand back on his thigh, and the moment is lost.

“That’s it for today,” Hux says.

Kylo doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything.

“That’s it for today,” Hux repeats sharply.

“Thanks,” Kylo mumbles.

“You can get up any time now,” Hux says curtly, turning around to the bench so he doesn’t have to look at the back of Kylo’s stupid fucking head anymore. Digs his phone out of his back pocket and flips it on, looks at the text messages Phasma has left him.

 

_phasma: he’s not on something?_

_phasma: valium, maybe. seems pretty klutzy for a guy his size, don’t you think?_

_phasma: ask him who his supplier is._

 

By the time he’s turned back, Kylo’s already gone.

 

Kylo’s next appointment isn’t scheduled for another three weeks.

Hux spends his weekends at the Outer Rim, going back and forth between his regular table and the bathroom. He makes his way through most of the bar’s stash of peppermint schnapps, trying to get some fucking satisfaction, and failing miserably.

Every Sunday morning, there are ice-picks digging into his brain and a hammer pounding away behind his eyes.

Monday mornings aren’t much better.

 

Hux is swilling his mouth out with coffee in the kitchen, swishing it around, and then spitting it into the sink when Phasma walks in.

“Your mountain is here,” she says. Her eyes narrow once she notices him standing next to the kitchen sink, notices the open bottle of bleach on the counter next to it.

“He’s not mine,” Hux says sharply, then frowns at the taste still lingering in the back of his throat. Disgusting. Takes another swig of coffee and rinses again.

“You know,” Phasma says coldly. “You could just pull off before they come.”

“What, I should take it in the hair from some asshole who claims he was aiming for his own hand, but ‘accidentally’ missed? No, thank you.”

“It’s not more disgusting than you spitting jizz into the communal sink. Which, I believe you’ll recall, I have asked you multiple times to _stop fucking doing_.”

“Exhibit A,” Hux says dryly. “The bleach. The sink’s already clean, and I’d clean my mouth out the same way if that was possible, but it’s not, so …” He gestures with his cup of coffee.

“Give it a go next time,” Phasma says. “Just update your life insurance policy before you do, and don’t forget that I’m the only one who cares about you.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly.

“I’ll send Kylo back, but for fuck’s sake, get that sink clean before you even consider heading back there.”

Armitage’s mouth is full of scalding hot coffee, so he just shrugs, swishes it around again. Tips his head back and gargles carefully before spitting the entire mess into the sink.

He pours extra bleach down the sink afterwards, in deference to Phasma’s pickiness, and the part where she’s his employer and he needs a job.

Squares his shoulders, and heads back into his room.

 

The linework on Kylo’s tattoo at his previous appointment had gone easily.

The colour is a different matter entirely.

It necessitates working on smaller sections of Kylo’s skin for longer periods of time, and Kylo is being his weird self about the entire fucking thing, except somehow _worse_.

(Hux would have bet three weeks ago that it could not possibly get worse than it already was, what with the constant shifting and moving around and the hand in the pocket—and yet, here they were, and it was so. much. _worse_.)

The first few minutes of the appointment are fine. Kylo sits still, and Hux works as fast as he can to get colour laid down before Kylo starts moving around. When Kylo starts shifting, Hux sighs, looks at his watch. Ten minutes.

(It had been thirty when he’d been doing the outlining, and that was bad enough, but apparently thirty minutes was a fucking blessing, and this new ten-minute-limit is _such_  bullshit.)

Hux rolls his shoulders back, steels himself, and goes into the modified work style he uses with Kylo now that he’s realized this is a problem—inking as fast as he can for as long as he can, and then pulling back and stretching out his muscles while Kylo shifts, adjusts himself, moves around—whatever the fuck it is that he’s doing other than driving Armitage completely mad.

But this time, things get even stranger.

About twenty, twenty-five minutes in—Kylo’s breathing starts to pick up.

Hux is working on his right shoulder when it happens, carefully shading a chrome pipe. He ignores it, because there’s no point in bringing it up—except that shortly after Kylo’s breathing picks up, there’s a flush that starts to creep up his neck, and Hux is at the perfect angle to watch the colour escalating up into Kylo’s ears, which have never looked more prominent than they do now.

Kylo shifts in his seat again, much more obviously than last time, and it’s only Hux’s quick reflexes that allow him to pull back in time to avoid fucking up Kylo’s tattoo.

(It’d been fucking close though, _fuck_. Hux has never fucked up someone’s tattoo before, and he’s not about to start now.)

“ _Would_  you stop doing that?” Hux snaps. “Look, I get it. You’re flushed. You’re embarrassed. Whatever. I don’t care what the fuck is going on, I need you to _stop moving_.”

Kylo stops moving.

The ear that Hux can see from his vantage point, poking out from amidst the sloppy rats-nest of Kylo’s hair, is a bright, brilliant red.

“Is that … normal?” Kylo asks finally, his voice so quiet that if Hux hadn’t been bent over his shoulder the entire time, he wouldn’t have heard a damn thing.

“The flushing?”

Kylo hesitates. Nods. Doesn’t say a goddamn word.

“Look,” Hux says, trying to dredge up the scraps of his patience that Kylo Ren hasn’t completely shredded. There’s not much left. “It can be. Getting tattooed can cause all kinds of—”

Kylo starts moving around, digging in his pockets.

Hux slows his explanation of physiological reactions to being tattooed, shocked that Kylo actually has the audacity to—

Headphones.

Kylo is pulling headphones out of his pocket, and jamming them into his ears _while Hux is still talking to him._

By the time Hux gets his shit together enough to figure out a vaguely professional rebuke, Kylo has the music cranked up so loud that it doesn’t matter whether Hux is professional or not, because Kylo won’t hear a damn fucking thing Hux says.

Hux grits his teeth, and keeps tattooing.

The blush in Ren’s ears fades over the next fifteen minutes.

He doesn’t move for the rest of the session, and Hux is incandescent with rage.

 

The next appointment is supposed to be three weeks after that, except that Ren calls the week before the appointment and reschedules it.

Out of spite, Hux pushes the rescheduled appointment off another week.

 

Ren shows up early this time. Hux is in his office, working at his negatoscope. He has his shirt completely unbuttoned, doesn’t bother to button it up when Ren comes in.

Ren doesn’t look at him, can’t look at him, doesn’t want to look at him—who the fuck cares?

Not Hux.

 

Once they’re settled into the studio, Ren takes his headphones out of his pocket.

“Not fucking likely,” Hux says conversationally.

“… pardon?” Ren asks.

“Put them away,” Hux says.

“I’m … more comfortable with them in.” It’s the longest sentence that Ren has ever strung together.

“That’s nice for you,” Hux says.

Ren moves his hand closer to his ear.

Hux puts his hand over Ren’s to stop him. Ren’s skin is warm and his hand is so fucking big and—

Ren snatches his hand back, rises up out of the tattoo chair _fast_. Fast enough that Hux reflexively shoves his wheeled stool back to give himself some space from the man that’s suddenly looming over him, and Hux’s back hits the counter _hard_ , hard enough to bruise, and—

—it still doesn’t give him any distance.

He can’t get any further away if Ren decides to advance on him.

Hux waits, breathing shallow. Ren’s hands are clenching and releasing at his sides like Ren is a man who hits people when they piss him off, like he’s the kind of guy that solves his problems with his fists because it’s easier that way, and Hux wonders what it would feel like to take one of those meat-hammers directly to his jaw.

It’d sure put a damper on his weekend activities at the Rim, and at that thought, at the thought of trying to take a cock in a jaw that’s been wired almost completely shut, Hux’s mouth twists into a smirk.

Kylo twitches, turns, and stalks out.

Leaves the building so quickly that Hux can hear the door rattling.

It only takes Phasma about two steps and a bit of a slide to get to the door of Hux’s studio. “What the fuck was that?”

“Wasn’t aware you could slide on stilettos,” Hux says. His voice is shaking. Why the fuck is his voice shaking? “Handy party trick.”

“What’s with the earbuds?” Phasma says flatly.

Hux looks down at his hand. Ren’s earbuds are danging from his fingers, one of them nearly disconnected from the wire. He doesn’t remember specifically grabbing them, but supposes he must have. “Ren attempted to make this a thing, if you can believe it.”

Phasma arches an eyebrow at him. “And?”

“And … and no,” Hux says. “No.”

“Christ,” Phasma says. “Are you still pissy that he hasn’t responded to you? Is it worth whatever the fuck happened in here just for you to continue waltzing around with your shirt undone like we’re not a proper fucking tattoo studio?”

“This isn’t a proper fucking studio,” Hux snaps. “You hired me.”

Phasma is furious, and it only shows in her eyes, because the rest of her face, the rest of her body, has gone completely still. “And if you weren’t fucking brilliant, I would unhire you right this minute. Your personal life is a fucking disaster, and it’s affecting the studio. Smarten the fuck up, Armitage, or I _will_  fire your ass, and I’ll haul you out of here myself and toss you in the street like the trash you are.”

Hux can the blood rising in his own skin, thinks of Ren’s ears, and hears something crack in his mouth as his teeth grind together. “Look, Phas, just—”

“Save it,” she says shortly. “Don’t charge Ren for his appointment this week, and maybe there’s a half-chance he’ll come back.”

“I don’t care if he doesn’t,” Hux says.

He charges Ren’s credit card anyway, expecting to get a phonecall out of it where he can reverse the charge while explaining to Ren how fucking _wrong_  everything that Ren just did is, how it’s unacceptable to behave the way Ren is behaving, how Ren should just fucking pretend he’s a regular human person even though he is _obviously_  ridiculously fucked up, because there’s no reason any of this should have to be this _fucking_  complicated when all Hux wants to do is just _blow_  the guy—

Ren doesn’t phone about the credit card charge.

And he doesn’t book another appointment.

 

It’s six weeks after that when there’s the slam of something heavy down on the front counter.

“Watch it,” Hux snaps from the hallway as he strides to the front of the studio, shoes clicking. He’s got his knife in his pocket because he’s the only one here today, because it’s Saturday, and they haven’t had shit for walkins because the weather is trash. Hux is in the kind of mood where he’s considering not even going to the Rim tonight, because if he ends up blackout drunk, some asshole will probably drag him from the bathroom out into the alley, and the alley is fucking disgusting when it’s sunny out, never mind when it’s raining. “What the fuck—”

It’s Ren.

And the thing that he’s slammed down on the front counter is a bottle of bourbon. Not the brand Hux drinks—Ren probably couldn’t afford that—but a decent kind nevertheless.

Hux looks at the bourbon.

Looks at the front counter, which is miraculously uncracked, considering how hard Ren had slammed the bottle down.

Looks at Ren. The man is … simmering. Dangerous. Huge.

Still smells fucking fantastic, though.

“I’ll meet you back there,” Hux says, and Ren falls into step behind him.

 

They don’t speak during the session. Ren lasts his regular ten minutes before the shifting starts, and this time the flush creeping up his neck happens immediately. Hux doesn’t want a repeat of last time—but he also doesn’t want Phasma to lose her shit on him again.

(If pressed, if he’s drunk, he would admit that he doesn’t want to lose this job either, that this job is probably the best thing that’s happened to him since Krennic withdrew his financial support when Hux was only halfway through grad school, leaving him unable to finish … but it’s Saturday and Hux is sober and he’s just not going to think about any of that right now because it’s very upsetting, and a reminder of how fucking clipped his wings are.)

“I can’t take the gun off your back every time you need to move,” Hux says finally.

Ren stills. Flushes more intensely, and doesn’t say a goddamn thing.

“Arch your back,” Hux says.

“What?”

Hux puts his hand on the small of Ren’s bare back, and his skin is hot like fire underneath Hux’s gloved hand. “Arch,” Hux repeats.

And Ren does, presses his pelvis forward into the support of the chair, the small of his back curling away from Hux’s hand.

And then, in a move that Phasma would not approve of, a move that she would definitely fire him for if she knew about it, Hux stands up from his wheeled stool and slides into position right behind Ren, his legs pressing up against Ren’s to hold him in place. There is enough space between Hux’s crotch and Ren’s ass that Hux could slide his gloved hand in between them without touching—if he’s careful. If he moves slowly.

Ren inhales sharply.

Doesn’t exhale.

Hux puts the gun to his skin again, keeps working on the colour like nothing is wrong, because nothing is wrong.

When Ren finally exhales, his breath is unsteady.

He doesn’t shift, doesn’t move, doesn’t fidget for the rest of the session.

Hux isn’t even sure if Ren is blinking.

But he doesn’t much care, one way or the other.

 

Hux leaves first, gets up from the tattoo chair—legs suddenly cold now that they’re not pressed against Ren’s—puts his tools away, snaps his gloves off and tosses them in the trash, and goes immediately to his office.

His mouth is full of bourbon when he hears a shuffling sound at the door.

Hux turns.

Ren is standing there, hands in his pockets.

“’m sorry,” he says.

Hux taps his foot, stays where he is. Swallows the bourbon in his mouth and takes another swig, lets it sit in his mouth and burn.

“With the—with the headphones,” Ren says. “I shouldn’t’ve …”

Hux swallows. Waits.

Lets Ren keep digging the hole he’s put himself in. As if he’s ever going to get out of it.

As though Hux is ever going to stop hating him.

“I’d like … the tattoo …” Ren gestures vaguely. “Expanded. Over my, uh, shoulders.”

Hux is forced to admit that Ren’s eyes look sharper this time. Less wet.

Maybe Phasma was onto something with the Valium.

“You’ll get yourself in trouble with a temper like that,” Hux says finally.

“Already did,” Ren says. The corner of his mouth twitches, but doesn’t resolve into any emotion that Hux can identify.

Hux couldn’t care less.

 

A week later, Hux has Ren come in to sign off on the new expanded design.

It’s raining outside, and Ren is soaking wet. He stands dripping in the front, looking at the sketches that Hux has laid out on the counter.

(Usually, Hux would be infuriated if Ren insisted on standing at the counter instead of coming back to Hux’s office to see the sketches in conjunction with the reference material Ren had provided and the extensive reference material Hux has gathered himself—but Hux takes one look at Ren, dripping water onto the floor like an improperly drained mop, and it’s—it’s fine that Ren hasn’t left the entrance, because Hux wouldn’t _allow_  Ren in his office like this. As a matter of fact, the sooner Ren leaves the building, the better.)

He approves one of the options Hux has drawn up for him without a word—just pushes the paper across the counter at Hux, nods, and leaves.

Hux bites back his anger, swallows it down.

Lets it rot and seethe in his stomach.

 

Ren’s eyes are back to glassy at his next appointment.

Hux sits immediately behind him again, presses his thighs up against Ren’s.

Ren does not move. Ren does not twitch.

He falls asleep halfway through the appointment, just as Hux is finishing the shading on the existing design.

He stays asleep as Hux works on the tops of his shoulders, freehanding the outline that will bring the tattoo forward onto Ren’s collarbones.

Hux has to wake Ren up at the end of the appointment, usher him out of the building. Ren stumbles when he comes into the sunlight, and it takes him a moment to regain his footing.

Hux thinks, watching through the front window, that Ren’s hands are unsteady when he lays them on his bike.

He goes back to his office, pours himself a bourbon. Takes it across the hall, and sips it while he leans against the doorframe to his studio. There’s a spit-slick section on the headrest of Hux’s tattoo chair where Ren had been so out of it he’d actually drooled on the leather. Hux will have to sterilize the entire thing, really scrub it with bleach to get the fluids out.

 

Later that evening, it occurs to Hux that maybe Ren shouldn’t have been driving his bike after the appointment.

Ren’s personal life is none of his business, though.

 

Armitage masturbates that night, thinking of Ren’s dead body laid out on a slab, cock stiff from rigour mortis, and Hux sucking him down, embalming fluid and formaldehyde burning at the back of his throat.

 

Hux doesn’t need to look up to know that Ren is looming in his office door, can recognize the smell of the man from a distance.

“You’re early,” Hux says flatly. He doesn’t bother turning around, just keeps sketching. The dead black heart that sits at the focal point of his chest piece is finally fucking done, so he’s just doing a final check for balance, making sure that everything is laid out correctly, no element overpowering another without Hux’s explicit consent. He wants Phasma to start on the inking tomorrow, which means she needs to get her eyes on the sketches tonight.

It’ll be tight to have the entire thing finished before the expo, but as long as Hux grits his teeth through it, they’ll get there.

“I, uh,” Ren says, and then falls silent.

“I’m not ready for you,” Hux says. “You’ll have to take a seat.”

Hux had intended for Ren to go back out to the waiting room so he could finish his work in peace, but apparently he should have been more fucking specific, because Ren doesn’t leave Hux’s office. He drags out the chair on the other side of the desk—noisy as always—sits down, and doesn’t say a goddamn word for the next thirty minutes while Hux finishes checking his work.

After thirty seconds, Hux almost forgets that Ren is there—except that he can still smell him, that faint rich scent of leather slowly permeating through Hux’s office, and Hux … relaxes into it. Continues checking his tattoo for balance, makes sure all the details are exactly where they need to be.

Lets Ren wait.

 

When he’s finished, he sends Ren over to his studio, takes a few moments to drop the final drawings for his own tattoo on Phasma’s desk. As soon as Hux comes into his studio, Ren looks up from where he’s been standing off to the side, hands shoved in his pockets. His brown eyes are still wet-looking, but—sharper, somehow.

Whether Ren is more relaxed because he’s been sitting in Hux’s office for nearly an hour, or whether he’s just—on his meds, off his meds, whatever—something about this session is different.

Hux can feel it.

At Hux’s direction, Ren sits facing forward, legs spread wide enough that Hux can easily fit between them—and so he does, stands with one knee on the chair between Ren’s legs, his other leg touching the inside of Ren’s thigh.

There’s not much to the remainder of the tattoo. The outline had been completed last session, although when Hux pulls away from it and squints through his glasses, he realizes that he’ll need to outline a new section today—he hadn’t accounted for how fucking _huge_  Ren’s chest is, and the tattoo will need to come down slightly further than Ren’s collarbones just so that it balances appropriately on his skin.

The colouring goes well, though, and it’s easy enough to freehand in the small extensions—there’s so many fucking bits and pieces on motorcycle engines that it’s not difficult to find something that can be added in to bring the design down just a little bit further, and Hux has got all the reference photos scanned into his phone for exactly this reason—and as Ren had already confirmed earlier by approving Hux’s other designs, he doesn’t seem to care much for realism, just that the tattoo looks vaguely like the inside of a motorcycle.

Hux briefly wonders if the motorcycle is a sexual thing for Ren.

Decides he doesn’t care.

 

Hux finishes the last of the shading, cleans up Ren’s skin. (It is fucking nice skin, to be honest.) Snaps off his gloves and tosses them across the room into the trash.

There’s a bit of work left, but not much—he could get it done today, if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and Ren—Kylo—already has another appointment booked.

Plus, Hux isn’t quite there yet. He can feel it humming in his veins, though—the adrenaline of almost being done, of nearly being able to send another piece of art out into the wild on someone’s skin. Hux is eagerly anticipating the way he’ll feel next session, when he’ll carefully prep the exact light grey he uses to sign his name on the tattoo, tucking his signature ( _armitage_  in spidery cursive) neat and tight right underneath Kylo’s collarbone where it’ll hardly be visible—but Hux will know it’s there, and when Kylo looks in the mirror, he’ll know it’s there too.

But that’s for next session. Next session, when Hux puts the finishing touches on the piece, signs his name on Ren’s skin. Next session, when Hux strips off his gloves and puts his bare hands on Kylo’s chest, drags them down Kylo’s abs and undoes his pants and …

Hux closes his eyes for a moment, opens them. Kylo is still sitting there, waiting for—waiting for Hux to do something?

Hux lets himself indulge, just a little. Puts his bare fingers on Kylo’s chest, just under the tattoo.

Kylo immediately tenses, shuts his eyes.

“Session’s done,” Hux says tersely, removing his bare fingers from Ren’s skin and turning away to wash his hands. “Show yourself out.”

_Fuckhead._

 

The lighting at the Outer Rim is shit at best, so Hux notices immediately as soon as somebody blocks it. His hand stills on the page.

“Hey, uh, so …”

Armitage looks up from his sketchpad, glares over his glasses at the douchebro standing in front of him. “What.”

“They, uh, told me that you’re the Blo—”

“Fuck off,” Hux snaps. “I’m working.”

“No, really, I hear you su—”

A hand descends onto the man’s shoulder.

Squeezes.

“The man said to fuck off,” Phasma says conversationally. “So fuck off.”

Hux adjusts his glasses, looks back down at his sketchpad.

Phasma yanks the other chair out from his table— _not unlike Ren_ , his mind unhelpfully supplies—and sits down heavily. Shoves a glass toward him, which he looks at briefly, and then promptly downs as quickly as he can.

Bourbon. It fucking burns, but it’s warm in his stomach, and that’s fine, it’s just fine.

“You’re in a mood,” she says.

“Mmm,” Hux says.

“What’s got you so cranky?”

“Could we not?”

She looks at the sketch. “You don’t seriously think he’ll want that piece expanded down his chest?”

Hux takes his glasses off, rubs at the bridge of his nose with his other hand, and then puts them back on again. “No,” he says, and the sheer honesty of it is the only way he knows that he’s working his way towards drunk. “But it doesn’t hurt to work on it.”

The thing is, it’s just not coming out right. Every time he tries to put pencil to paper, he thinks about the way Ren’s face had closed off when Hux had touched him, and that’s—that’s not a thing.

It doesn’t happen.

Not to him.

Especially not when the last session is coming up next, and Hux is into it now, he’s anticipating it, he’s ready for it—and if he yanks off his gloves and touches Ren and Ren fucking flinches again …

“Look,” Phasma says finally. “You gotta just let it go. Whatever the fuck is happening with him, you gotta let it go. Don’t fucking draw art for a piece your client is never going to approve. It’s a waste of your time.”

“I can handle my own shit, Phasma.”

“Can you?” she asks.

Hux sets down his pencil, looks at her. “I think you’ll find,” he says tightly, “that as it’s Saturday night, and I am up here, sitting at my table, minding my own damn business, and _working_ , rather than—” And here, he gestures out to the bar laid out before them. “—my _usual bullshit_ , that I am fucking fine.”

“Suit yourself,” Phasma says, and she pushes back her chair, and heads back to her VIP booth.

Anyway, it’s not going to kill him to have a night off.

He just wants to see if he can get this expansion for Ren’s tattoo right, see if Ren will approve it at their next—last—session.

The art is fucking phenomenal.

Ren will approve it. He has to.

 

Hux makes up for working through Saturday night by spending most of Sunday kneeling on the bathroom floor at the Rim, giving oral to whoever comes in. It’s remarkably busy for a Sunday night—busy enough that he doesn’t get out to the bar for his regular peppermint schnapps chaser between sets of genitals.

By the end of the night, Hux is sober, sore, and throughly disgusted with himself. Every time he swallows, he tastes—well, there’s really no sense in describing it, because then that just forces him to think about it for longer, and he would really rather not.

(He can’t wait until sexbots become an actual thing, and he can just buy one that doesn’t get wet, that moans and groans above him exactly like a person without any of the associated fluids, one that just tastes like fucking _skin_  without also tasting like ejaculate.)

He doesn’t bother jacking off when he gets home, just lies on his bed on top of the covers, stares at the ceiling, and wills himself to stop thinking about Kylo fucking Ren.

His dick is hard when he falls asleep, and it’s still hard when he wakes up.

Disgusting.

 

Three weeks later, it’s Ren’s last appointment.

Ren does not approve the expansion Hux proposes to his tattoo.

Ren does not approve any of the new designs.

Every time Hux looks at him, he remembers the way Ren flinched when Hux touched him.

Hux does not deserve this. Hux does not deserve any of this.

He finishes the shading on the piece. Checks the rest of the piece, and ensures it’s accurate.

This is it.

This is the last of the tattoo.

“I’ll be right back,” Hux mutters, words running into each other and escaping his mouth too quickly. He snaps off his gloves and escapes to his office for a moment, just so he can breathe.

He never feels anything except a slow uncurling predatory instinct in his guts. Whatever’s happening right now is not that. This is something new. This is not—this is not a thing that happens to him.

He realizes, somewhat hysterically, that if he had asked Ren for the name of his supplier like Phasma had wanted him to, that at least Phasma would be able to hook him up with something to make him feel better, something that would make him feel not like this, what the fuck _is_  this?

(Phasma probably could have hooked him up with something anyways, but Hux hadn’t asked because this wasn’t supposed to happen, Ren was supposed to approve the expanded design and then Hux could have drawn this out for a few more months so that even if—even when—it went tits up tonight, it wouldn’t matter, because Hux would have another chance, Hux could have—)

Hux looks at the bottom drawer of his desk, but he’s too fucking angry to be able to figure out whether a shot of bourbon is a good idea or a bad idea.

Goes back to the studio, and mixes up the appropriate grey to add his signature to Ren’s chest.

Realizes the moment that he starts that he’s got the wrong shade, but—

Honestly, though.

Fuck it.

Fuck it all.

 

“So this is it,” Hux says, securing the last corner of the plastic wrap over Kylo’s completed tattoo. “It’s finished.”

Ren doesn’t say anything. With his eyes shut like this, his lashes are so long they touch his cheekbones.

Hux is not going to touch him.

Hux is not going to touch him.

Ren opens his eyes, and they are—

—Kylo’s eyes are soft, and gentle.

Hux wonders if he knows, now. If he knows who Hux is, if he knows what Hux’s reputation is for, if he knows that Hux is known at the Rim as the Blowjob King—

He has to know.

Kylo has to know.

There is no way that Kylo _doesn’t_  know.

Hux’s bare fingertips are on Kylo’s chest, just under the tattoo, and Kylo does not flinch this time, does not close his eyes.

Hux drags his hands in parallel down Kylo’s chest, grazing over his nipples—which immediately peak under Hux’s fingertips.

“You do have a lovely chest,” Hux murmurs.

Kylo bites his lip and doesn’t say anything.

Hux doesn’t stop. Drags his fingers down Kylo’s stomach.

Kylo’s breath catches.

Hux’s fingertips are on Kylo’s belt loops.

“H-hux,” Kylo says.

“Mmm,” Hux replies. He undoes the button on Kylo’s jeans. Grasps the silver pull-tab of his zipper and gently, casually, pulls it down, down, down.

Kylo is wearing loose cotton boxers underneath his black jeans, the bulge of his cock just visible through the dark grey fabric.

Hux puts his palm between Kylo’s legs. Kylo is already hard—not fully, Hux realizes when he puts pressure down through his hand, feels the flesh under his hand _give_  as he presses his palm across the length of Kylo’s dick.

Under Hux’s hand, Kylo’s cock twitches. Hux swears he can feel the blood rushing into it, and the fucking thing is shaping up to be  _thick_.

Hux’s mouth waters in anticipation, and he swallows.

Kylo’s gasp is quick and short and his arms tense at his sides, but he doesn’t fucking move. Doesn’t reach out to touch Hux. Doesn’t say anything. Just tenses, and waits.

Perfect, Hux thinks, and he takes off his glasses, puts them in the front pocket of his shirt. Closes his eyes.

Kneels down between Kylo’s legs.

He pinches the waistband of Kylo’s underwear between his thumb and finger, and gently pulls it out and around Kylo’s cock, tucks it underneath Kylo’s balls so that it won’t get in the way. Puts one hand on each of Kylo’s hips to orient himself, and, keeping his eyes shut, rubs his face along his own left forearm starting at his elbow, using his arm to ground himself. His mouth easily slides from his own hand directly onto Kylo’s skin, and Kylo’s skin is warm and clean and …

… shaved?

Hux’s eyelids flutter, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight, forces himself not to open them and spoil the effect. It’s never as fucking good if he opens his eyes, even though he is half-blind without his glasses, without the haze of bourbon and schnapps that normally fuzzes his vision out. He’s just going to ruin it if he opens his eyes, and he doesn’t want to ruin it—

Hux sticks his tongue out, wets his lips, considers using _only_  his lips—but no, his tongue, he really fucking wants his tongue on Kylo’s skin, and it’s—

—it’s so fucking clean. Completely hairless, and Hux keeps anticipating that, any moment now, he’s going to put his tongue right into disgustingly thick pubes, but it just—it just doesn’t happen. Kylo’s skin is smooth and clear, and completely lacking in stubble, and before Hux knows it, the right side of his face is snugged right up against Kylo’s erect dick, and there is no pubic hair there at all, just smooth skin.

It’s not what Hux had expected. He’d expected a thick bush of wiry pubic hair, had already steeled himself to deal with it without gagging, the way that Kylo’s sweat would get stuck in his pubic hair, the stench of him when Hux got close, but there’s—there’s nothing there. Just clean skin, so recently shaved that there isn’t even the hint of a stubble shadow.

Kylo’s dick is pressed up against the side of Hux’s face, and it’s hot against Hux’s skin. Not fully upright—maybe it can’t stand up under its own weight, maybe Kylo just has one of those kinds of dicks—but flopped back against Kylo’s stomach. Hux slides his tongue around underneath the base of Kylo’s dick, traces the tip of his tongue over Kylo’s balls before giving in and dragging the flat of his tongue in a long, slow path around Kylo’s left testicle, and then around to his right testicle.

Kylo’s thighs are pressed against Hux’s shoulders, and Hux can feel a quick tense-release, tense-release of the muscles. It’s not the kind of thing he normally allows, but since Kylo doesn’t make any attempt to trap Hux or to crush him, Hux lets it happen.

Hux slides his tongue back across Kylo’s balls, experimentally licks the underside of Kylo’s ballsack. Kylo is sure to be disgusting here, all trapped sweat and musk and—except he’s not. Just that slight hint of soap, and clean, clean skin.

Hux flicks his tongue away from Kylo’s balls, closes his mouth and swallows, inhales deeply. Takes a moment to gather himself, because this is so close to being perfect and he just knows Kylo’s going to fucking wreck it somehow—

And it’s in dragging his tongue up Kylo’s actual dick, eyes still shut tight, that he discovers the problem.

The problem isn’t the vein standing out prominently, so obvious under Hux’s tongue. The problem isn’t the thickness, because Hux has had all kinds of things that thick jammed in his mouth before, and he’s perfectly capable of handling it, and handling it well. The problem isn’t the length—it’s about what Hux had expected, considering Kylo’s height. Long, but not unsimilar to Hux’s own dick, and since Hux has a silicone cast of his own dick at home, he knows that the length won’t be a problem either.

The problem is the fucking foreskin, still mostly covering the head of Kylo’s cock, obscuring the ridge of the corona so that the head is blunted.

_Gross._

He’s going to draw the foreskin back and be hit in the face with the musky smell of unwashed dick, and the gross texture of smegma under his tongue, and there’s really no point even continuing when that happens, because that’s already way more body fluids than Hux is willing to deal with for the sake of his oral fixation. Hux is just going to call the entire fucking thing off, because it’s a waste of his time, and Kylo can just jam his hardon back in his pants and go fuck the exhaust pipe of his bike for all Hux cares.

Hux brings his hand up to Kylo’s dick, pulls his foreskin back hard enough that Kylo gasps, shifts, and for a moment Hux thinks he’ll have to spear his fingernails into Kylo’s ribs because Kylo is going to crush him between his thighs—and then Kylo relaxes, mumbles something Hux can’t hear.

Hux grimaces, swipes the flat of his tongue over the head of Kylo’s cock, and it’s—

—it’s okay?

Hux opens his eyes in shock, stares at the head of Kylo’s perfectly pristine cock.

There’s a slight sheen to the head of it where the foreskin had been touching, but Hux has a perfect view right down Kylo’s urethra, and there’s no precome or anything, there’s just—there’s just a dick. Hux reaches his tongue out, laps at the head of it, and Kylo groans, exhaling heavily enough that Hux can feel Kylo’s breath against his hair.

Hux closes his mouth over Kylo’s dick, swirls his tongue around the head again, and there is basically … there is basically no taste to the fucking thing. There’s no precome to get in the way and the only thing Hux can taste is Kylo’s dick, his skin, the softness of Kylo’s foreskin and the hard heat of his erection.

Hux starts sucking in earnest, because this is the closest thing to a dildo he’s ever had in his mouth except that Kylo is attached it it, Kylo is breathing heavily above him, Kylo’s thighs are lightly touching Hux’s shoulders, and it is fucking _perfect_. Kylo’s dick is hot and tastes slightly of sweat, but there’s none of the gross salt-slick taste that usually ruins things when their stupid cocks start pulsing into Hux’s throat … no, this is nothing but sheer cock all over Hux’s mouth, against his tongue, down his throat, and it is so fucking goddamn _good_.

“I was th-thinking,” Kylo gasps out, shifting his hips from side to side under Hux, but not pushing forward, never pushing forward. “The t-tattoo.”

Hux pulls upwards, takes a deep breath through his nose, and then sinks down on Kylo’s cock again. He can feel the stretch of it at the corners of his mouth, can feel the tension in his jaw, and he wishes he’d had this cock years ago, back when he wasn’t as good at this—wishes Kylo’s cock had been one of his first, wishes for the tight jaw he used to have just so that he could dislocate it trying to get Kylo’s cock down his throat, pop his mandible right out of his fucking face with the size of Kylo’s cock—

(There’s no fucking chance of any damage happening now, Hux has had way too much practice.)

Hux can just barely feel the soft skin covering Kylo’s pubic bone against his nose, so he waits, tries to prolong it for a bit, because once he’s down the whole way, once he’s got it in his mouth, it’s … it’s done, he’s done, it’s over, he’s finished with it, and he wants—

—fuck, he wants, for once, not to be finished with it. He wants to keep enjoying Kylo’s cock, but that’s not a thing, that’s not how cocks work, Hux has spent too many fucking years going down on people to not be fucking skilled at it even when he doesn’t care about the end result, it’s all about the process, he just wants the process, he just wants—

“I’ll … more appointments,” Kylo pants above him. “Expand the … expand the fucking tattoo, Hux, stop, Hux, I’m—”

Hux relaxes his throat, swallows back the last inch of Kylo’s dick just as it twitches, just as Kylo comes. Hux has no choice but to pull back, keep his lips closed around Kylo’s cock while it spurts into his mouth to prevent any from getting onto his face or his hair.

Fucking disgusting.

Like usual.

Hux stands up immediately afterwards, washes his hands at the sink. Wishes he’d had Kylo’s dick shallower in his mouth so that he could have spat at least some of it back out, but instead Kylo’s semen is sitting in his stomach like some kind of organic sludge that Hux will have to flush out with bourbon.

“Three weeks from today,” Hux says curtly. “Same time.”

“Y-yeah,” Kylo says. He looks absolutely shattered, slumped back against the tattoo chair with his soft dick out, leaking on his pants. One of his hands is twitching.

“Good,” Hux says, and he questions himself, all thirteen steps back to his office, why the fuck he opened his mouth to say it.

 

Hux pours out his usual two fingers of bourbon afterwards, swallows once more to cure the lingering taste so that he doesn’t end up contaminating his bourbon, and—

—he realizes that the inside of his mouth doesn’t taste as foul as usual.

He hadn’t noticed at the time, had reacted completely on instinct, guts twisting in revulsion just because he knew what he had just swallowed, knew how disgusting it was, knew how much he hated it, except—

—except maybe Hux doesn’t completely hate the way Kylo tastes.

It’s not _good_.

But it’s maybe not awful.

Hux takes a sip of bourbon, rolls it around in his mouth, and spits it back into the glass.

Holds the glass up to the light, but he doesn’t see any residual semen or anything.

It had been a goddamn nice cock. And Kylo had behaved during—kept his hands to himself, kept his hips still, hadn’t asked for any stupid fucking shit that Hux didn’t want to give him, and—

Yeah, it had actually been pretty good.

Good enough that Hux is hard now. Good enough that he’ll probably head home soon, deal with it there instead of just letting it fade away.

Good enough that he’ll think about Kylo’s dick while he touches his own.

Think about what it felt like to have that dick filling his mouth, and pressing down his throat.

(Hux presses the palm of his hand down against his crotch, grinds into it. He’d jack off right here, but he’s pretty sure Phasma’s still in the building, and he really doesn’t want to have that conversation with her.)

He drinks the rest of his bourbon slowly, stares off into the distance at nothing.

 

In the following days, Hux lets himself get his hopes up. He thinks of Kylo’s dick down his throat while he masturbates, replica of his own cock jammed down his throat and hands in his pants, one wrapped around his dick and the other squeezing his balls. He thinks about the next time he’ll be able to tattoo Kylo, how good Kylo’s skin will feel under his gun, how good Kylo’s body will feel against his gloves. Thinks about the way that Kylo shifts and moves during the appointments, fantasizes about pressing Kylo against the chair with his body and inking him that way, so that every time Kylo shifts he just grinds his body up against Hux’s.

Hux considers breaking his own rule about only blowing clients at the end of a tattoo. Allows himself to think of an elaborate chestpiece covering Kylo’s entire broad muscular chest. Sessions upon sessions upon sessions, and each of them ending with Hux blowing Kylo in the tattoo chair.

Wonders what it would be like if he let Kylo touch him.

Not much, just a little.

One massive hand on the back of his head, just—just pressing Hux’s head down onto Kylo’s dick, forcing him to swallow it, and—

 

It’s a moot point.

A week before his next appointment, Kylo cancels.

He doesn’t reschedule.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are two girls staring at Hux from across the aisle.
> 
> He rolls his eyes, switches the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "Take a business card," he says, flicking the last couple from his pocket over toward them. "Expo's done, time to go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder to check the tags, and also, mind the dubcon.

There are two girls staring at Hux from across the aisle.

He rolls his eyes, switches his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Take a business card,” he says, flicking the last couple from his pocket over toward them. “Expo’s done, time to go home.”

One of the girls opens her mouth—and he just fucking knows that she’s going to correct him, because the expo doesn’t actually close for another forty minutes—but her friend elbows her, and they both keep moving.

_Good_.

His hands are fucking killing him, and though he wasn’t willing to admit it to Phasma when she’d asked, he’s counting down the minutes until she gets back and he can head off for a piss, run his hands under cold water to try and numb them out some.

Hux sits down in one of the chairs behind their booth. From a sitting position, the new First Order logo—shiny black, on matte black fabric—that’s situated front and center on the top of the table is way more fucking obvious. It’s only been a couple weeks, but _fuck_ , does Hux hate that fucking thing.

(”It’s a logo,” he’d said, and Ren was too fucking stupid to change his mind about it, and Hux was too fucking bored to talk him out of it, and now every time he looks at any of First Order’s new merch, he’s reminded of Ren’s fucking skin, of the muscles in his back and the way that his thighs twitched as Hux sucked him down, and _fuck_  that piece of shit all to hell, this rebrand is a fucking _terrible_  idea.)

Hux slams his boots up on the table, one after the other, centering his heels over the logo to obscure it as much as possible. Takes off his glasses, and cleans them with the bottom edge of his brand new First Order button-down shirt. Puts them back on and curls his upper lip at the group of people across the aisle, who are _also_  looking at him, and could they kindly fuck off, please.

Thirty minutes left.

“Your boots are on the table,” Phasma says as she returns, chrome stilettos clicking.

“Yeah,” he says. They’re nice boots—combat boots in black polished leather with metal heel taps, enough of a rise in them to give him an extra inch and three quarters in height, deep red laces. They look better on the table. They look better where people can see them.

“The logo on the banners looks great from across the hall,” she says, flicking the sole of his boot with her middle finger. Her nails are bright red. They match her lipstick and her eyeshadow. Her dress, though, is skin-tight and jet black with the new First Order logo—Ren’s fucking neck tattoo from _months_  ago—embroidered on the left side. His black button-up shirt matches—fitted, buttoned all the way up to his neck, with the new logo on the left side.

They look fucking sharp and Hux doesn’t even care. He just wants to get drunk at the Rim, same as they do every year after the expo.

“Guess what,” Phasma says, and her eyes are glinting in a way that they usually only do when she’s been drinking.

Hux is relatively certain she hasn’t been drinking—and anyway, it would be rude for her to go get a drink when she’s meant to have been running her hands under cold water, and if she’d gone and had a drink, she should have brought him one, and—

“What,” he asks flatly.

“You have to guess.” Her smile is wide and sincere, and it’s terrifying.

“No,” he says, switching the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “But I’m listening.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “So,” she says, drawing it out. “I was just over at the other end of the hall. At Mitaka’s booth. He’s just setting up to tattoo somebody.”

“Ugh,” Hux says. “He managed to get a table here?”

“Oh, he got a table,” Phasma says. “He’s got a table, he’s got a tattoo chair …”

“Great, so he’s doing mediocre flash on some tart of a girl.”

Phasma’s grin shows all her teeth. “Sure,” she says, “if that’s what you’re calling Kylo Ren these days.”

“That fucking bastard,” Hux hisses. He spits the toothpick out, swings his feet off the table and onto the floor. “I cannot believe that fucking bastard has the goddamn nerve to show up here—”

“Oh, you know damn well Mitaka doesn’t deserve—”

“Not Mitaka, _Ren_ ,” Hux snaps. “That fucking goddamn _bastard_.” He gets the first two buttons on his shirt undone, gets his fingers hung up on the rest, and just—just tears them, ripping the shirt off, envy and jealousy and sheer fucking pique burning him up from the inside. He will force Ren to _look_  at him, to _see_  him, he cannot believe Ren has the fucking balls to just—get somebody else to tattoo him, not after everything they’ve been through, not after Hux gave him such a fucking stellar blowjob, not after the fucking art and mastery that Hux put into Ren’s tattoo—

 

People move the fuck out of Hux’s way, so the crowds aren’t a problem as he stalks across the convention hall, shirtless and glaring. He is going to find Ren, and he is going to haul him out of Mitaka’s chair with his own two hands, and he’s going to backhand Ren as hard as he fucking can even though his hands are aching from all the tattoos he’s done this weekend. Hux is going to shake some sense into Ren, because what the fuck is he even _thinking_ , what the fuck does Ren think he’s _doing_ , _who the fuck does Ren think he is_?

(Armitage can’t stop thinking of the way Ren had looked down at him, the way he had completely folded when Hux had his cock in his mouth, and then after all that … after all that fucking _bullshit_  about wanting more work done, to just—to just cancel his appointments, and walk the fuck away, and to have the goddamn _audacity_  to get tattooed by _fucking Mitaka_  and—)

 

Hux has to physically elbow his way through a crowd at the end of the convention hall, and if all these fuckheads have shown up to watch fucking Mitaka, they’re in for a rude awakening, because the man’s technique is fucking garbage, and—

“Can’t let you back here right now, man.”

_“Pardon?”_

The guy reaches out to Hux to stop him, seems to think better of it once he catches sight of Hux’s tattoos and just hesitates. “We’ve got this section of the hall closed off due to a disturbance.”

Hux is just inhaling to really unleash on this guy, tell the fucking rent-a-cop to get the _fuck_  out of his _goddamn_  way, and then he sees the details of the disturbance.

Or, rather, he sees the recently neutralized _cause_  of the disturbance as two other rent-a-cops drag somebody out of the hall and toward one of the exits.

It’s Kylo Ren, shirtless and limp.

There are two taser probes embedded in his chest.

Hux smirks, turns on his heel, and clicks his way back to the First Order booth.

He’ll grill Mitaka about it later, when they’re all getting drunk at the Rim.

He hopes Kylo enjoys being blacklisted from the convention.

_Bastard_.

 

“I can’t believe that fucking _shitstain_  cancelled,” Hux gripes. “We always have—this thing. After the convention. We’re—we’re always here.” He is drunk, spinning, loose, and everything is _great_ , the bourbon is fucking fantastic, and he feels awesome except he’s still so fucking _pissed off_  about the whole Mitaka thing, and had really been looking forward to yelling at Mitaka about it, because Ren was his client, Ren was fucking _his_ —

Hux tosses back his bourbon, slides the empty glass across the table hard enough it collides heavily with the other glasses. It hits hard enough to send one of the glasses off the side of the table, where it falls to the floor and shatters.

“Hey!” yells Poe from across the room.

Hux doesn’t look back to the bar, just raises his middle finger in the air, and starts in on the only remaining glass on the table that still has bourbon in it.

(He’s not certain how this is his only remaining glass, because there were way more glasses a minute ago, he’s only just got here, they were late as shit coming over because it takes so fucking _long_  to pull apart the booth and square it away in Phasma’s truck, and normally he peaces out early but he’d come back to the booth to find her sewing the buttons back onto his fucking shirt like he was gonna owe her a _favour_  or some fucking shit, and _fuck_.)

“Just to be clear,” Phasma drawls, eyes scanning the room. “Are you talking about Mitaka, or Ren?”

“Mitaka,” Hux says. “No, Ren. Both of them. What the fuck ever. They’re both pieces of shit, disloyal pieces of shit, and I swear to  _fucking_  god, if Mitaka did anything to ruin the work I did on Ren, if I ever fucking see Ren again, I will—what?”

“Oh, nothing,” Phasma says, casually moving her glass closer to Hux’s side of the table. “Do continue. You were saying—if you ever see Ren again?”

“I’ll fucking tell that son of a bitch what’s what,” Hux hisses. He tosses back the rest of his drink. “I will fucking tell him—”

“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Phasma says under her breath, and she slides her chair over to the same side she’d pushed her drink to earlier, till she’s on Hux’s right, crowding him on his side of the table even though she’s got _plenty_  of fucking room on her own side.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Hux snaps, shifting his chair to the left so that his back is to the bar. “I don’t need a babysitter, I’m going for another—”

“Look behind you,” Phasma suggests gently.

It’s the only time he’s ever heard her be gentle.

Something in his stomach twists.

Hux looks.

He’s fucking drunk, and it takes a minute.

It takes a minute for the—for the mountain of black that’s stalking toward him to resolve. To resolve into something that—something that makes sense.

It isn’t until the mountain comes up against a table in his path, tosses it aside one-handed, that Hux realizes.

The mountain of black stalking toward him is Ren.

And he’s fucking _fast_.

 

Hux swallows, looks back at Phasma.

Bolts, but—

—but his fucking table is up on that stupid fucking platform wrapping around the edges of the bar and there’s fucking _steps_  and Hux’s feet aren’t nearly as coordinated as they usually are, and Ren—

 

—and Ren grabs him and slings Hux over his shoulder. Hux is—he’s—he’s over Ren’s shoulder, Ren’s arm clamped around his legs, and Hux’s head bouncing around by Ren’s ass.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Hux screeches. “Put me—put me down, you son of a—”

_Thunk_.

Hux’s head bounces off one of the support pillars, and everything explodes in stars. Fuzzy, fuzzy stars.

There’s the distinct screech of the alley door opening, and it’s abruptly cooler, damper, and Hux is—Hux is sailing limply through the air like a rag doll.

He’s not entirely certain if he passes out when he’s flying through the air or if he doesn’t pass out until he lands, but either way, everything goes dark, and it’s a fucking relief.

 

And then everything is light again, and Hux is nauseous, gagging, puking. He tries to roll out of the way, but whatever he’s lying on is squishy and uneven, and he can’t find his balance, and there isn’t any fucking _time_  and—

Most of the puke goes down the front of his shirt.

“Fuck,” Hux mutters. He spits the last of the bile out, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. Tries to sit up. His glasses are fucking crooked, so he adjusts them, but there’s a smear of something across one of the lenses.

It’s probably garbage juice, considering the entire alley fucking reeks of it, considering he’s in the alley sitting in a pile of the fucking shit, and there’s something wet under his thighs and something slimy on his hand and his own puke down the front of his shirt, and he’s here because Ren bodily picked him up, tossed Hux over his shoulder and threw him out, and Ren—

— _Ren is still in the fucking alley_ , leaned up against the wall with his eyes shut.

“What the fuck’r you looking at?” Hux slurs. “Piece of shit,” he adds.

“ _You_ ,” Ren says, opening his eyes. There is a depth and a timbre to his voice that Hux does not remember from previous tattoo sessions, a look in his eyes that is very much like the look Ren had flashed him when Hux had told him to put the headphones away—but somehow, so, so much be—so much worse.

“So what,” Hux snaps. “I’m always fucking here in the evenings, what the fuck’s your goddamn problem?”

Ren takes two steps toward Hux before he stops, breathes heavily through his nose for a moment before he grabs the bottom of his shirt, yanks it up. “ _You did this_ ,” he says, gesturing at his chest.

“Yeah,” Hux says. “Yeah, I did that.” He can’t see any of the details from here, because Ren is standing too fucking far away for him to be able to make out the details, but he knows that they’re sharp, he knows that they’re fucking good, he knows that Ren isn’t able to appreciate three-quarters of the style that Hux put into that piece—

Ren falters, a little. “You’re not denying it.”

Hux finally finds something solid to push up on, slowly gets to his feet in the pile of garbage. Staggers a little as he gets vertical, but recovers. His shirt is stuck to his chest, wet and uncomfortable. “It’s my fucking work,” Hux says. “Why would I deny it?”

He wants to go back to the door, wants to go inside, except Ren is standing by the door, so instead Hux takes a couple steps to the side

“You … you tattooed your name on my chest.”

“I always sign my work,” Hux snaps, but there’s something in the back of his mind that’s reminding him that he’d done something different with Ren, he’d done something different with Ren because he’d been pissed about the flinching and the shifting and the moving and Ren being a fucking _shit_  for _no goddamn reason_ , and then Ren had cancelled all his appointments, and—

“I got fucking kicked out of a tattoo convention because of this fucking shit,” Ren says darkly, and his hands twitch at his sides, and his eyes are sharp like daggers. “Because of what you did.”

And so Hux says, “Better than you getting tattooed by that prick Mitaka.”

Ren inhales sharply and strides forward, covering the rest of the space between them with a few steps. He stands hovering over Hux for a moment, nostrils flaring, and then grabs Hux and fucking _picks him up_ , drops him onto the closed lid of a low-squatting dumpster.

Hux’s head spins, then settles. He runs his tongue along his teeth, tastes vomit when he swallows.

There’s some of Hux’s puke glistening on Ren’s hand. Ren looks at it briefly, then wipes it off on Hux’s jeans, and fuck if Hux can’t feel the heat of him through the denim, and fuck if Hux doesn’t … if he doesn’t …

Hux pushes himself up to a sitting position. Ren is breathing heavily, but not saying anything, not saying a single damn thing, and his shirt is still rucked up but Hux can’t see anything through the fucking garbage smeared on his one lens and he’s already squinting because he’s drunk, and he just needs to be a bit closer, so Hux—so he leans in, yanks Ren’s shirt up higher, leans in close. Peers at Ren’s chest, at the tattoo across his collarbones, and—

—oh.

Hux’s regular signature is a finely tattooed light grey _armitage_  that is only visible up close.

Kylo’s chest, however, has been signed in a lovely black script—small, but very visible, and it reads—

_property of armitage hux_

 

Right.

 

He _had_  done that. He remembers—in a vague, blurry sense—how pissed off he’d been when he’d done it, but then Ren had let Hux blow him anyway at the end of the appointment, and it had been good, his dick had been great, it had been almost enough to make Hux want to call him again except Hux didn’t do that, doesn’t do that, won’t—and anyway Ren had cancelled his subsequent appointments, and that is some fucking _bullshit_  right there and—

Ren is still standing there, breathing heavily.

He’s fucking furious.

“Looks good,” Hux says, and he grins.

Something flares in Ren’s face. It’s that same look he had at the tattoo studio that one time—face like a thundercloud, eyes hooded, mouth drawn into a tight line.

Hux looks at Ren’s hands, at his big, big hands—and they’re both curled into fists.

“Fucking do it,” Hux says. _Hit me_ , he thinks. _Punch me right in the face._  He doesn’t want to be conscious anyway, would prefer to just black out again and be done with it. He’s already puked, he won’t again, so there’s no risk to it, and anyway, his head is pounding and Ren—

—and Ren is fumbling with Hux’s belt.

Ren is splaying one massive hand across Hux’s ribs, right across the puke down the front of his shirt, his fingers just touching the First Order logo on the left side. The other hand is yanking on Hux’s belt, undoing the button of his pants and pulling his pants open, and then—and then Ren’s bare hand is on Hux’s naked hip.

Ren’s face is fucking intense, eyes still hooded and hair falling down over them. His shirt has fallen back down again, and there’s some fucking nebula or something printed across the chest, and he’s just—he’s just _looking_  at Hux, breathing heavy and fucking _staring_.

This is—what the fuck is this, even, Hux has no fucking idea, but whatever, if Ren wants to try and blow him, that’s fucking fine. Hux is probably too drunk to get it up, and he doesn’t like any of that shit to begin with, he only likes the stuff that he does, he only like—

“Take off your shirt,” Hux slurs, because he deserves that much, at least. He flicks his fingers towards Ren in a gesture that’s supposed to be—Hux isn’t entirely certain what it’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t matter, because Ren is doing what Hux said, exactly what Hux said.

Ren yanks his shirt over his head, exposing his—his abs, his chest, his tattoo.

Without either of Ren’s hands keeping him pinned, Hux starts sliding down the slanted lid, his shirt rucking up in the back and his pants dragging uncomfortably on the plastic of the garbage bin lid.

He comes to a sudden stop when his ass hits Ren’s abs.

Hux’s legs are on either side of Ren’s waist.

Ren is breathing heavily.

Hux is—

—holy _fuck_ , that goddamn tattoo looks nice up close. The colour looks even better now that it’s healed, and the precision of the lines is fucking phenomenal. This close to Ren’s chest, Hux can see everything, all the details that he stressed over, everything that he imagined actually realized in full colour, across a beautifully sculpted chest, and _property of armitage hux_  right there across Ren’s left pec under his collarbone.

When Hux brings his fingertips up to run them along the design, Ren is so fucking warm.

“Do it,” Hux breathes, and he runs his fingertips across the pipes he’d tattooed on Ren’s chest, runs his fingers up to Ren’s collarbone. There is something so intimate about just touching his skin.

Ren puts his hands on either side of Hux’s waist, grips the waistband of his pants. Yanks them down over Hux’s ass, and then attempts to yank them off his feet, except the legs of them are too tight to get around Hux’s boots, and Ren curses, starts fumbling with Hux’s boots.

Hux doesn’t care. He’s still looking at the tattoo. He’s pretty certain Mitaka didn’t do anything to it to fuck it up, didn’t actually touch Ren, that whatever the fuck happened that at the expo happened before Mitaka had a chance to fuck it all up, because _goddamn_ , this tattoo is perfect. It looks so fucking good on Ren’s skin, so beautiful and perfectly balanced. His linework is fucking exceptional, and a brief pang of regret forces itself through the haze of his brain, makes him wonder if he should have contacted Kylo, entered this piece into the expo in addition to entering his own chestpiece—

Kylo shoves his hand into his own pants and palms himself, and then undoes his jeans, yanks down his zipper, pulls out his cock. Ducks his head to spit in his hand, and then runs it across the length of his dick.

Hux suddenly realizes he’s naked from the waist down except for his socks, and doesn’t really have a clear recollection of when that happened. He starts laughing, a high-pitched uneven thing that falls out of his mouth unintentionally. From a distant spot in his mind, he realizes he sounds ridiculous, that his laugh is bordering on hysterical, but he can’t quite stop it. “You have to be kidding, you can’t—”

Ren grabs Hux’s ankles, hoists them up in the air.

Rubs his spit-slick erection against Hux’s hole.

“You can’t seriously—”

Ren looks down, horks, and then spits down between them. The gob of spit hits with a heavy splat, mostly against Hux’s balls. Ren smears it down with his thumb, pushes his hard dick up against Hux again, and just—just keeps pushing.

Hux bites his lip.

Thinks about how good Kylo’s dick felt in his mouth, and the thought is enough to help him relax enough that Ren’s able to shove it about halfway in and start awkwardly thrusting, the dumpster rattling loosely, and Hux only staying balanced on top of it because Ren has both his ankles clasped together in one massive hand.

Ren’s other hand is back on Hux’s naked hip, pinning him down.

Kylo’s head is down again, and he’s panting as he thrusts into Hux, hair moving back and forth, and Hux gives up on trying to relax, just lays his head down and stares up at the sky as Ren ruts into him, dick dragging on the inside of Hux’s ass in short sharp strokes that have to hurt Ren’s dick because they’re definitely hurting Hux’s ass, though he’s had worse—

Ren suddenly stills.

“Came already?” Hux slurs.

“No,” Ren says immediately, defensive. “But …”

Hux raises his head to look, follows Ren’s eyesight to realize what Ren is staring at.

(What Ren is staring at is Hux’s flaccid dick, flopped across his thigh.)

Hux laughs again. “Come the fuck on,” he says, and he makes an effort not to slur it, though his tongue is pretty thick and he’s not entirely certain he succeeds. “You didn’t honestly think this was good for me, did you?”

Ren looks like he’s been kicked in the face, starts pulling out. Moves his hand from Hux’s hip to his dick and squeezes him awkwardly.

“No point,” Hux says. “I said, I said you could do … wha’you wanted, just—”

Ren palms him a few times, squeezes gently at the base of Hux’s dick, touches his balls.

Hux lays his head back on the dumpster. “No fucking point,” he repeats, and now he’s just fucking disappointed that Ren is ruining everything. Again. Why does he let Ren keep fucking _ruining_  things?

Ren stops moving, breathes heavily.

“Never mind,” Hux slurs. “I’mma go get another drink.” He puts his hand down on the lid of the dumpster, tries to get enough purchase that he can—sit up, or slide off, or—

Before Hux gets purchase on anything, Ren grabs Hux’s ankles, hoists him up, lifting his bare ass off the garbage can. He separates Hux’s legs, hooks them over his shoulders, and buries his face in Hux’s ass.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Hux squawks. “What the—get the—get _off_ , what—why—”

Ren’s tongue is on his hole, Ren is slobbering right on Hux’s asshole and cramming his tongue in there. Nobody has ever done this to Hux before because it’s fucking disgusting, he can feel Ren fucking _breathing right on his ass_ , what the _fuck_ , why would people even do this, Ren’s mouth is fucking disgusting, his tongue filthy, there’s fucking slobber everywhere like Ren is some kind of a damn _animal_ , and Hux—

—Hux is getting hard, and he fucking wishes he wasn’t, he wishes he could just stay flaccid the entire time just to shove it in Ren’s face, because that’s what Ren fucking deserves for cancelling his appointments like he did, for being such a fucking _asshole_ every time he showed up at the studio, for being a piece of _fucking shit_ in general—

Hux throws his arm over his face, turns away so that Ren can’t look at him.

Ren keeps—Ren keeps doing it, inexplicably, and there is spit on Hux’s ballsack, there is spit running down the crack of his ass, and when Ren comes up for a breath he drops Hux back onto the garbage bin, and Hux hears plastic cracking, feels his ass sliding on Ren’s fucking spit, and then—

—and then Kylo shoves his perfect cock up Hux’s ass, grinds against him, and then pulls out and fucks back in again, rubbing hard against Hux’s prostate, and Hux feels like he’s being roasted on a fucking spit, he feels like Kylo is spearing him right through his fucking guts, like Kylo is—

Hux risks moving his arm a little higher, so he can peer at Kylo from underneath it, and Kylo’s lips are red and swollen and his chin is soaking wet and dripping and he’s doing something with his thumb, has his thumb lodged between Hux’s asshole and his balls, and is pressing, pressing, pressing—

“Your ass is fucking filthy,” Kylo says to him. “You’re fucking disgusting, you know that, right? They fucking talk about you in there, they talk about you constantly, and here you are with fucking puke on your shirt, all flushed. You smell fucking awful and they talk about you like you’re some kind of a fucking god but look at you,” Kylo says viciously. “You—are—fucking—filth—trash—garbage, and I’m—I’m getting off on how—fucking—dirty—you are—gonna—” Kylo throws his head back, hair damp with sweat. “Gonna come—right inside you—leave it there—let it drip down your legs—gonna—ah, fuck, _fuck_ —”

Hux lets his arm move a little higher, just so he can see better, just so he can get a clearer look—and Kylo just—

—Kylo makes eye contact with him and then thrusts his dick deep into Hux’s ass, grinds against him for a moment before yanking out and shoving his fingers up there instead and there’s some kind of awful fucking _squelch_ noise that probably means Kylo’s already come but Hux can’t think about that because Kylo is ducking his head down, Kylo is taking Hux’s dick in his mouth—

—Kylo is taking Hux’s dick in his mouth and curling his fingers hard against Hux’s prostate and the minute Hux realizes that the same tongue that was just up his fucking _ass_  is now on his dick, his balls tighten and he’s coming, he’s coming into Kylo’s fucking filthy mouth and he squeezes his eyes shut because this cannot be happening, this cannot—

His orgasm is like being run over by a fucking train, all the synapses in his brain firing all at once, it’s like falling off of a fucking cliff and then shattering every bone in his body on impact, it’s like fucking dying, every muscle in his body clenching tight all at once and then exploding into gore and viscera, leaving him limp and fucked out.

Hux opens his eyes. Kylo is leaning in close, hair hanging around his face, and Hux wonders if Kylo is going to ki—

Ren spits Hux’s cum back onto his face.

It hits Hux in the cheek, just missing his glasses, slides down the side of his face. There’s a moment where Hux’s stomach twists, and he thinks he actually might puke again even though there’s nothing left in his stomach—and instead, his dick just twitches, oozes more cum out onto Hux’s hip.

Ren grins, all crooked and asymmetrical, spit-slick. There’s a glob of what’s probably Hux’s cum on the side of his mouth. He pulls his fingers out of Hux’s ass, wipes them off on Hux’s thigh. Tucks his disgusting dick back into his pants and does them back up. Picks his shirt up off the ground and shakes it out.

The back of the shirt has big white letters on it, something with a fucking _S_ or something, but Hux’s glasses are in even worse shape now than they were initially, and he can’t fucking see shit.

He tries to lower himself to the ground, ends up sliding off the garbage can in a graceless heap. There’s a lump on the back of his head from Ren bouncing him off the support pillar earlier, and he’s mostly naked except for his shirt, which means he might as well be naked because the shirt is a fucking nightmare.

(Phasma’s gonna be really pissed about that, especially after she’d sewed the buttons back on.)

Ren bends down, and Hux thinks for a moment that it’s to help him up—but all Ren does is wipe his mouth off on one of the few remaining clean spots on Hux’s shirt, and then straighten up and walk back to the door.

“This isn’t finished,” Hux says. He means it to sound like a threat.

(He doesn’t mean his voice to waver like it does.)

Ren shrugs. “Okay,” he says. Completely impassive. Like he hadn’t just—like whatever he had done—like …

“I’ll fix the tattoo,” Hux says, finally.

Ren shrugs again. “I don’t mind it,” he says. “Now that I know it’s there.” His face darkens. “You just surprised me. I don’t like to be surprised.”

“Assaulted the last guy that surprised you?” Hux guesses.

“Yeah,” Ren says. He puts his hand on the door. “And then killed him,” he says, like it needs clarification, like Hux is somehow supposed to be _shocked_  by this.

Kylo hauls the door open, and disappears back inside the Rim.

 

Hux waits until the alley door is completely shut behind Ren, and then he pulls himself up, and sets about putting himself back together again. Pulls his pants back on, puts on his boots.

He can feel a trickle of Ren’s cum leaking out of his ass the moment his pants are up—but whatever. They’re on now, and he’s not gonna pull them down to try and clean up because there’s no point. He’ll deal with it the next time he takes a shit.

The new First Order shirt is a disaster, so Hux strips it off. He turns it inside out, and cleans off his chest with it, uses the cleanest parts to wipe off his face, and then crumples the fucking thing up and tosses it back on the same pile of trash that Ren had tossed him in earlier.

He staggers back into the bar shirtless and limping. His table is empty, but there’s a tshirt tossed across his chair, and a full glass of bourbon sitting there waiting.

Hux pulls the tshirt on over his head, wincing when it drags over the lump on the back of his head. Looks down at himself. Same fucking nebula across the chest of this one that was across Ren’s, and when Hux squints and yanks the shirt away from his chest to look at it, he can see _the outer rim_ printed in white font across the bottom of the shitty stretched-out graphic, so apparently it’s official merch, or whatever. No writing on the back of this one, though, so he can’t solve the mystery of whatever the fuck was on Ren’s that way.

This shirt doesn’t even smell like Ren, it just smells like it’s been sitting in storage for months.

“You alright?” Phasma asks. She’s leaning on the railing looking up at him. Her own drink is full—some kind of fancy martini or something.

“Well, fuck you if I’m not,” Hux says. “You didn’t exactly storm out there to help me.”

She shrugs. “Didn’t need to, Poe’s got cameras back there.”

Hux flushes.

“You looked fine.”

He picks up his glass, takes a swig of bourbon. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice comes out rough again. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m fine.”

He’s still thinking about the way Kylo’s cock felt in his mouth, but now he’s also thinking about the way Kylo’s dick felt in his ass, about the way Kylo actually had more than two words to string together when they were fucking, and Hux is—

—well, this isn’t finished. This can’t be finished.

Hux isn’t done yet.

He shifts uncomfortably on his seat, ass aching. Takes a sip of bourbon.

Scans the crowd for Ren.

Doesn’t see him.

 

Hux is just getting started when the bathroom door swings open, and Poe ambles in, stands there for a second.

(He’s still short, even when Hux is kneeling.)

“Hux,” Poe says. “Buddy.”

Hux doesn’t bother stopping what he’s doing, drags his tongue around his hookup’s dick, tasting the salt-sweat tang of him.

“Uh,” the hookup says.

“Focus,” Hux snaps. “Ignore him, he’s just in here to be petty about health and safety.”

“Actually,” Poe says, “I’m not. I have a new and exciting problem.”

Hux sighs against the dude’s ballsack, nuzzles against the guy’s hip for a moment. “What.”

“I need you to unfuck my security guard,” Poe says.

“That’s funny,” Hux says, his breath reverberating off the dude’s dick and back against his own face. “Because first of all, you can’t unfuck what’s already been fucked, and second of all, you don’t have a security guard.”

“No,” Poe says. “That’s the problem. I _do_ have a security guard, and you fucked him up, and I need you to _un_ fuck him, because I need him to do his fucking job.”

“You don’t—”

“Kylo Ren,” Poe says flatly.

Hux’s breath comes out in a huff of laughter, and he pulls away from his hookup, sits back on his heels. “ _Kylo Ren_?”

“Yeah,” Poe says stubbornly, and his jaw is set, and he’s got that gorgeous perpetual five o’clock shadow and his eyebrows are drawn together, and _Kylo fucking Ren_?

“Kylo Ren,” Hux says patiently, “is a fucking pussy who ass-fucked me on a garbage dumpster in your back alley the other week, and he hasn’t said a fucking word to me since.”

“I know,” Poe says. “I have cameras out there.”

“What was it,” Hux snaps, “a fucking spectacle? Did you call everybody in the bar over?”

“Would you have called it off if I had, or just come harder?” Poe counters.

“Christ,” Hux’s hookup says. “Would you at least use your hand while you’re talking?”

Hux glares up at him. “You wanna shut the fuck up? Poe and I are having a discussion here.”

“I came in here for a blowjob,” the guy insists.

“And considering how fucking close my teeth are to your testicles, I would reconsider how much you’re bitching,” Hux says.

The guy falls, finally, into silence.

“My security guard,” Poe continues, “has spent fucking weeks trying to figure out if he’s popping boners during appointments because he’s got a fetish for being inked, or if he’s got a fetish for his ginger prig of a tattoo artist.”

“Well,” Hux says acidly. “If your fucking _security guard_  had asked me, I would have told him that it was _obviously_  me, and that he should stop being so fucking _juvenile_  about the whole thing. Did you not clue him in that I blow you every time you show up?”

“No,” Poe says. “You only blow me _most_ of the time I show up.”

“Stop showing up with shit art,” Hux says, turning back to his hookup. “It might improve your odds.”

“Georgia O’Keefe is—”

“Over-exposed.”

“And Sailor Jerry—”

“Fucking stop it, Poe, you’re killing me.” Hux drags his tongue back across his hookup’s dick, coaxes it back into hardness, and then wraps his lips around it and starts sucking.

“I’m serious,” Poe says. “I need a security guard, he needs a job, and you need to get this fucking shit sorted.”

Hux pulls off the hookup’s dick, his own spit trailing from his lips. “Ren knows where to find me when he decides to use his words like an adult,” he says.

“You blacklisted him.”

Hux laughs, swallows the hookup’s dick back almost to the base, and then pulls off again. “That fucking piece of shit thinks I cared enough about him to blacklist him? Not fucking likely.” Hux has his mouth halfway down the guy’s dick again before he figures it’s a good idea to clarify, and he pulls off, ignoring the hookup’s frustrated groan. “You tell him he’s welcome back anytime, and he knows where the fuck to find me when he grows up.”

Poe rolls his eyes. “I’ll pass that along. Thanks for your assistance, as always.”

“Anytime,” Hux says, and he gets back to sucking cock, sliding right back into the rhythm of it like he hadn’t been fucking completely derailed by Kylo Ren being a mess. Again.

He’s just starting to get off on it, just starting to get invested in the guy’s hardon down his throat, in the way that he can hear the guy panting and breathing above him, when the bathroom door slams open and there are heavy footsteps in the entrance that stop prior to reaching the urinals or the stalls.

Hux pulls off, tips his head to the right, and—

“Clear out,” Hux says, voice suddenly rough.

“What?” his hookup says.

“Yeah,” Kylo Ren rumbles from the doorway. “Get the fuck out.”

The man curses, and scrambles out, shoving his dick back into his pants as he escapes out of the bathroom and back into the bar.

Hux sits back on his heels, gets a good look at Ren.

He looks fucking good tonight, tall and broad with his hair falling loose to his shoulders, a hint of stubble on his face which probably means there’s gonna be stubble at the base of his cock too, but Hux figures that it’ll probably be okay, he can probably deal with it just this once. Ren’s wearing an official Rim tshirt, with that horrifically tacky nebula across the chest, and he’s rubbing his fingers together at his sides like it’s a nervous twitch, even though his eyes are sharp.

“Well?” Hux asks.

Kylo takes a step closer.

Hux grins, licks his lips.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's that, then.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://heyktula.tumblr.com/) and also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/kdotcaine), and promise I am very approachable.

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle up, things get real in chapter two.
> 
> Also, I'm on Tumblr: https://heyktula.tumblr.com/


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